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OBJECT  LESSONS. 


GEO.  G.  MERRIGK. 


A  WORD  IS  ENOUGH  FOR  A  WISE  MAN. 


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OBJECT  LESSONS 


SHORT  CHAPTERS  ON  FINANCE,  MONEY, 

LEGISLATION,  AND  THE  GENERAL 

SITUATION  AT  THE  CLOSE 

OF  THE  YEAR  1895. 


By  GEO.  G.  MERRICK. 


A  WORD  IS  ENOUGH  FOR  A  WISE  MAN. 


'Be  it  known  unto  thee,  oh  king,  we  will  not  serve  or  worship  the 
golden  image  wliich  thou  hast  set  up."— Daniel  iii.  18. 


DENVER,  COLO. 

John  Dove.  Printer  and  Publisher. 

1S96. 


Copyrighted  by 
GEO.  G.  MERRICK 
1896. 


INTRODUCTION. 


IN  the  preparation  of  this  volume  no  at- 
tempt has  been  made  to  present  a  con- 
tinuous argument  in  favor  of  the  free 
coinage  of  silver,  nor  to  do  more  than  to  in- 
dicate, in  as  concise  manner  as  possible,  some 
of  the  causes  and  effects  which  operate  up- 
on the  welfare  of  the  people. 

The  effort  has  been  to  condense  rather 
than  to  enlarge,  hoping  thereby  to  stimulate 
g  independent  inquiry  and  investigation. 

Great  care   has  been  taken  that  every 

statement  made  shall  be  wholly  reliable  as 

J  to  the  facts,  and  as  to  the  soundness  of  the 

f  propositions  in  Political   Economy  and  Sci- 

a|  ence  of  Money. 

^  No  merely  local  or  selfish  interests  are 
to  be  exclusively  benefited  by  the  restora- 
tion of  silver  to  its  constitutional  place  in 
the  money  of  this  nation.  The  right  is  as 
broad  as  the  power  of  the  people.  It  is  in- 
herent in  the  Constitution.  Every  citizen 
should  desire  the  greatest  good  to  the  great- 
est number;  and  that  the  destructive  bur- 
den of  debt  shall  be  rendered  lighter,  and 
mdustry  permitted  its  just  reward.     And  in 


6  a  *"">  ^~t  ^— ^  ■»•» - 


4  Introduction. 

the  hope  that  the  American  people  will 
unite,  placing  patriotism  above  partisan  pol- 
itics, and  restore  the  laws  of  the  republic 
under  which  the  nation's  industries  pros- 
pered ;  that  is,  a  government  which,  found- 
ed upon  the  broad  principles  of  equality  and 
right,  extends  its  almighty  arm  over  all,  on 
one  common  basis  of  liberty,  equality  and 
justice.  And  in  that  hope,  and  in  that  faith, 
this  volume  is  respectfully  dedicated  to  the 
American  People. 

Geo.  G.  Merrick. 

Denver,  Colo., 

January,  1896. 


THE  DOLLAR  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION. 


,«< 


,tTS>* 


The  Silver  Dollar  of  Three  Hundred 
Seventy-one  and  one  quarter  grains  fine  sil- 
ver is  the  dollar  of  the  Fathers,  of  the  Con- 
stitution and  of  the  Law.  It  is  the  dollar  of 
Washington,  Madison  and  Jefferson.  It  is 
the  dollar  which  supported  the  Patriots  of 
American  Liberty,  and  gave  the  American 
Nation  a  constitutional  government.  It  is 
to-day,  what  it  was  before  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution,  the  one  coin  above  all 
others  identified  as  the  Money  of  the  People, 
which  has  never  been  altered,  changed  or 
impaired.  Patriotic  memories  are  associated 
with  it.  It  is  the  dollar  of  the  American 
People.  They  love  it.  It  is  a  part  of  their 
traditions;  and  they  will  no  more  surrender 
it,  than  they  will  surrender  their  National 
Existence,  or  their  National  Flag. 


PROPHECY,  1876. 


"However  great  the  natural  resources  of 
a  country  may  be,  however  genial  its  cli- 
mate, fertile  its  soil,  ingenious,  enterprising 
and  industrious  its  inhabitants,  or  free  its 
institutions,  if  the  volume  of  money  is  shrink- 
ing and  prices  are  falling,  its  merchants  will 
be  overwehelmed  with  bankruptcy,  its  in- 
dustries will  be  paralyzed,  and  destitution 
and  distress  will  prevail."  -Report  U.  S.  Sil- 
ver Commission,  iSj6,  p.  §6. 


FULFILLMENT,  1895. 


Prices  have  fallen  fifty  per  cent. ! 
Merchants  are  bankrupt ! 
Industries  paralyzed  ! 
Destitution  and  distress  prevail  ! 
The  burden  of  debt  increasing  ! 
The  volume  of  money  shrinking  ! 
The  only  business  which  prospers  is  the 
accursed  trade  of  usury  ! 


CHAPTER  I. 

FREE  COINAGE  :    WHAT  IT  IS,  WHAT  IT  IS  NOT. 

The  advocates  of  the  gold  standard  for 
money,  seem  unable  to  define  with  precision 
just  what  is  meant  by  Free  Coinage ;  and  as 
such  definition  is  essential  to  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  purpose  and  effect  of  words 
used,  the  following  may  be  accepted  as  the 
truth  in  relation  to  each  set  of  phrases  :  Free 
Coinage,  Unlimited  (or  unrestricted)  Coin- 
age, Gratuitous  Coinage. 

Free  Coinage.  This  means  that  every 
person  having  good  metal  (silver  or  gold), 
shall  be  entitled  to  free  access  to  the  mint  to 
deposit  it  for  coinage  ;  that  there  shall  be  no 
discrimination,  no  favoritism,  for  or  against 
either  metal,  nor  in  favor  of,  or  against  any 
person,  by  reason  of  age,  sex,  color,  religion 
or  party.  And  that  mint  officials  shall  re- 
ceive the  bullion,  and  deliver  out  the  coins 
made  therefrom,  in  the  order  of  time  in 
which  deposited.1  And  that  the  law  shall 
provide  proper  penalties  for  the  due  en- 
forcement of  these  rights.  Free  coinage 
does  not  mean  gratuitous  coinage  either  di 
rectly  or  by  implication. 

1  See  Objection  No.  6. 


S  Free  Coinage :  What  it  is,  What  it  is  not. 

Unlimited  (or  Unrestricted)  Coinage. 
This  phrase  means,  that  any  person  may  de- 
posit at  the  mint  for  coinage,  any  quantity 
of  metal,  silver  or  gold,  without  reference  to 
locality  where  produced,  or  limitation  as  to 
amount,  above  $100. 

Gratuitous  Coinage  means,  that  standard 
metal  shall  be  fabricated  into  coins,  without 
charge  for  mintage,  or  the  operation  of  the 
mint. 

There  never  has  been,  nor  is  there  now, 
any  controversy  as  to  whether  coinage  shall 
be  gratuitous  or  not.  If  it  is  proposed  to 
make  the  mint,  either  in  whole  or  in  part, 
self-supporting,  the  only  demand  is,  that 
both  silver  and  gold  contribute  upon  an 
equitable  basis  of  charge  for  coinage  to  that 
support.  That  the  law  shall  provide  equal 
rights  to  silver  and  gold.  That  there  shall 
be  no  discrimination  for  or  against  either 
metal,  in  their  rights  of  mintage,  and  func- 
tion as  money. 

The  coinage  law  of  1792  was  fashioned 
upon  the  English  Act  of  Parliament  of  1666, 
which  provided  for  the  free,  unlimited  and 
gratuitous  coinage  of  all  the  silver  and  gold 
brought  to  it  for  coinage  into  lawful  money 


Frt  e  Coinage :  What  it  is,  W/iat  it  is  not.         9 

of  England.1  The  act  of  1S37  was  a  free,  un- 
limited and  gratuitous  coinage  act. 

The  acts  of  1792  and  1837  provided  for 
certain  charges,  for  assaying,  refining,  part- 
ing, and  for  alloy,  in  preparing,  or  standard- 
izing- the  metal  ;  but  no  charge  for  the  oper- 
ation of  the  mint.  It  will  be  observed  that 
the  law  draws  a  sharp  distinction  between 
the  metallurgical  processes  of  preparing 
standard  metal  suitable  for  the  operation  of 
the  Mint,  and  the  conversion  of  standard 
metal  into  coin. 

Standard  metal  may  be  prepared  by  any 
responsible  metallurgical  establishment:  but 
the  converting  of  standard  metal  into  coin, 
is  the  prerogative  of  the  mint ;  expressing 
the  sovereignty  of  the  people.  The  services 
of  the  United  States  Mint  have  uniformly 
been  gratuitous,  with  the  exception  of  twen- 
ty-three months  after  February  12,  1873. 

The  coinage  act  of  1873,  f°r  the  first  time 
established  a  mint  charge  of  one-fifth  of  one 
per  cent,  for  converting  standard  gold  bul- 
lion into  coin.  And  the  charges  for  assay- 
ing, melting  and  refining,  parting  and  for 
alloy,    to  be  fixed  by  the  Secretary  of  the 


1  International  Monetary  Conference,  1878,  published 
by  Department  of  State,  Doc.  56,  45th  Cong.,  3d  Sess.,  pp. 
309.  3io. 


jo        Free  Coinage :  What  it  is,  What  it  is  not. 

Treasury  so  as  to  equal,  but  not  to  exceed, 
the  actual  average  cost,  etc.1  This  charge  of 
one-fifth  of  one  per  cent,  on  gold  coin  was 
repealed  by  Sec.  2  Act  of  January  14th,  1S75, 
"An  Act  to  Provide  for  the  Resumption  of 
Specie  Payments."  So  that  since  that  date 
the  coinage  of  gold  has  been  free,  unlimited 
and  gratuitous.  The  demand  is  for  exact 
equality  for  silver  and  gold  ;  no  more,  no 
less. 

1  See  Sec.  25,  Act  February   12th,   1873.     Also  Sec.  18, 
Act  January  18  h,  1837. 


CHAPTER  U. 

WHAT  IS  VALUE  IN  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  ? 
"Ye  are  all  physicians  of  no  value."— Job  xiii.  I. 

Value  in  political  economy,  in  buying,  or 
selling,  where  the  exchange  is  to  be  effected 
with  money  as  one  of  the  terms,  or  agents 
of  the  contract,  possesses  no  other  or  differ- 
ent quality,  than  were  the  exchange  one  of 
property  for  property.  There  must  first  be 
an  agreement  to  exchange  the  quantities 
fixed  by  the  agreement,  a  debt  contracted, 
which,  like  all  debt,  is  payable  in  money.  x 
Value,  therefore,  is  that  estimate  which  the 
individual  mind  places  upon  an  article  or 
commodity,  in  relation  to  the  desire  for  its 
possession,  together  with  the  ability  to  ac- 
quire it. 

Value  is  an  ideal, ^and  in  this  ideal  there 
can  be  no  standard/ s 


1  No  one  can  be  compelled  to  exchange  anything  for 
money  until  a  contract  in  some  form  is  established  in  which 
money  is  one  term  of  the  agreement.  (See  "What  is 
Money  ?"  page  20. 

2  "It  is  hardly  correct  to  speak  of  a  standard  of  value. 
Value  is  an  ideal  thing."—  U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  12th  Wal- 


CHAPTER  III. 

UNIT  OF  VALUE  IMPOSSIBLE. 

In  the  United  States  the  dollar  is  the  unit 
for  money,1  and  the  money  of  account. 

When  in  1792  the  United  States  Congress 
enacted  "That  the  money  of  account  shall 
be  expressed  in  dollars  or  units,  *  *  *  and 
all  accounts  in  the  public  offices,  and  all 
proceedings  in  the  courts  of  the  United 
States  shall  be  kept  and  had  in  conformity 
with  this  regulation,"  the  effort  was  directed 
towards  preserving  with  scrupulous  care  the 
then  existing  order  of  things,  the  rights, 
habits,  methods  of  thought,  and  usage 
among  the  people  upon,  not  only  the  money 
of  account,  but  also  as  to  the  unit,  what  it 
then  was,  and  what  it  should  continue  to  be. 

Value  being  purely  "an  ideal  thing,"  it  is 
impossible  to,  by  enactment,  create  a  unit 
to  which  the  ideal  shall  conform,  or,  by 
which  it  shall  be  expressed.  And  it  was  left 
for  the  Congress  which  passed  "the  treach- 
erous and  deceptive  act  of  1873,"  to  attempt 


1  What  is  a  unit  ?  7'he  fundamental  unit  adopted  in 
any  system  of  weights,  measurers,  or  money,  by  which  its 
several  denominations  are  regulated,  and  which  is  itself 
defined  by  comparison  with  some  known  magnitude,  either 
natural  or  empirical,  as,  in  the  United  States,  the  dollar  for 
money. 


Unit  of  Value  Impossible.  1 3 

the  impossible,  and  solemnly  decree  a  "unit 
of  value." 

It  were  charitable  to  suppose  that  when 
the  act  of  1873  was  prepared,  the  promoter 
of  it  was  so  much  absorbed  with  the  intent 
to  "remove  the  ancient  landmark  of  money," 
that  the  absurd  and  futile  expression,  "unit 
of  value,"  when  used  in  connection  with  the 
gold  dollar,  escaped  the  attention  of  the 
committee.  May  it  not  be  further  evidence, 
that  neither  the  committee,  nor  Congress, 
knew  it  were  there,  for  there  were  many 
members  of  both  houses  of  Congress  who 
knew  that  a  "unit  of  value,"  was  a  legal  ab- 
surdity ;  and  that  to  vote  in  support  of  such 
an  impossible  proposition,  was  to  imperish- 
ably  record  their  incompetency  as  legisla- 
tors*. 

"The  dollar  as  a  unit  of  value"  is  prepos- 
terous. Our  Hamilton-Jefferson  statute, 
founding  the  mint,  provided  a  dollar  as  our 
"unit  of  account."1  The  dollar  remains  in 
law  and  usage  the  unit  of  account  of  the 
United  States. 

The  attempt  was  made  in  the  14th  Sec- 

l  W.  P.  St.  John,  President  Mercantile  National  Bank 
of  New  York,  before  the  Committee  of  Banking  and  Cur- 
rency. House  of  Representatives,  on  the  Carlisle  Bank  Note 
Bill,  December  15th,  1S94. 


14  Unit  of  Value  Impossible. 

tion  of  the  act  of  1873  to  change  the  ex- 
pression of  that  unit  from  silver  and  gold  to 
gold  alone,  but  to  effect  that  purpose  the 
words  "of  value,"  after  "unit"  must  be  held 
to  be  surplusage,  and  of  non  effect.  A  unit 
of  value  is  an  absurd  and  preposterous  im- 
possibility. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

GOLD  NEVER  VARIES  IN  VALUE. 

This  is  a  stock  argument  of  the  advocates 
of  the  single  gold  standard,  but  they  never 
venture  to  explain  why  it  does  not. 

The  answers  are  very  simple. 

Under  existing  laws  and  usage,  gold  is 
not  a  commodity ! 

Gold  is  not  bought  or  sold  in  the  market. 1 
Gold  miners  are  not  in  competition.  The 
producers  of  gold  in  the  United  States,  Aus- 
tralia or  South  Africa,  whether  at  a  cost  of 
15  cents  an  ounce  or  at  $30  an  ounce,  pro- 
duce gold,  for  which  the  mint  doors  are  open 
to  receive  and  convert  into  money  at  $20.67 
per  fine  ounce,  and  without  charge. 

This  is  the  legal,  the  statutory,  the  money 
value  of  an  ounce  of  gold  ;  because  it  will 
be  converted  into  primary — full  legal-ten- 
der, debt  paying  money  at  that  ratio.  Take 
from  gold  this  unlimited  use,  deprive  it  of 
free  coinage  and   of  the   legal   tender,  and 

1  It  is  customary  to  say  that  the  bankers  or  dealers  buy 
gold  bullion.  Do  they  ?  The  basis  of  every  transaction  in 
gold  dust,  nuggets,  or  bars  is  the  mint  valuation  of  $20.67 
per  fine  ounce.  The  dealer  charges  for  transportation,  ex- 
change, interest  and  commission.  So  that  the  transaction 
is  a  charge  for  services  rendered,  not  a  purchase  in  the 
sense  of  bargaining  as  to  the  value  or  price  of  the  fine 
metal. 


1 6  Gold  Never  Varies  in  Value. 

gold  becomes  a  commodity  to  be  bartered 
in  the  markets  to  the  highest  bidder.  It 
possesses  no  quality  in  itself  which  gives  to 
the  metal  an  unchanging  price  ;  but  as  long 
as  the  law  creates  the  arbitrary  function  of 
payment  of  debts,  and  confers  it  upon  gold, 
the  market  price  and  the  mint  valuation 
must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  remain  the 
same.  Hence,  the  unchanging  value  of  gold 
depends  upon  its  legal  function,  and  an  open 
mint.  The  commercial  value  of  gold  ex- 
pressed in  gold  must  always  be  its  gold  value. 
It  must  always  be  at  parity. 


CHAPTER  V. 

MONEY  EASY  IN  WALL  STREET. 
When  Prices  of  the  Products  of  a  Country  Fall,  Interest  Falls. 

Money  easy,  offered  on  call  at  one  per 
cent  per  annum  ;  and  this  condition  at  the 
important  money  centers  is  cited  as  evidence 
that  there  is  a  great  over-supply  of  money 
for  which  there  is  no  demand. 

If  evidence  were  needed  that  the  country 
is  not  generally  prosperous,  the  fact  that 
there  is  an  undue  accumulation  of  money 
and  currency  at  the  banking  centers  would 
in  itself  be  sufficient. 

The  fact  that  money  or  currency  is  of- 
fered to  loan  to  be  repaid  on  call  (on  de- 
mand without  grace)  at  the  rate  of  one  per 
cent,  per  annum  interest,  is  in  no  sense  any 
proof  of  an  adequate  supply  of  either.  It  is 
proof  that  the  holders  of  it  (banks)  dare  not 
loan  for  any  time,  fearing  that  the  owners 
(depositors)  may  call  for  payment  without 
notice,  and  that  the  demand  could  not  be 
met. 

Money  or  currency  locked  up  in  reserves 
or  held  for  speculative  purposes,  or  offered 
to  loan  on  call  at  one  per  cent.,  is  not  money 


I  8  Money  Easy  in  Wall  Street. 

in  circulation,  or  available  for  commercial  or 
industrial  transactions. 

Neither  railroads,  steamboats,  factories, 
shops  or  mills,  nor  any  important  industrial 
enterprise  can  be  instituted  and  developed 
upon  money  borrowed  to  be  repaid  on  call  ; 
nor  can  the  wheat,  or  cotton,  or  any  other  of 
the  great  staple  crops  of  the  country  be 
moved  to  a  market  by  the  use  of  money  bor- 
rowed to  be  repaid  on  call. 

When  prices  of  the  products  of  a  country 
fall,  interest  falls  ! 

Why  ?  "When  prices  of  commodities 
and  property  are  falling  moneyed  men  will 
not  part  with  money  in  order  to  acquire 
property  which  in  a  month  will  be  worth  less 
than  they  paid  for  it,  or  to  employ  labor,  the 
prices  of  the  products  of  which  are  constant- 
ly declining.  They  keep  their  money  either 
in  the  form  of  gilt-edged  bonds  or  as  de- 
posits in  bank,  subject  to  their  order.  In 
other  words,  so  far  as  all  the  purposes  of 
money  are  concerned,  it  may  be  said  to  be 
hoarded."  *  *  *  "When  money  is  rising  in 
value,  therefore,  men,  instead  of  putting  it 
to  use  take  it  practically  out  of  use.  Hence 
at  such  times  it  refuses  to  perform  the  be- 
nificent  functions  for  which  society  intended 


Money  Easy  in  Wail  Street.  1 9 


it.  *  *  *  "These  low  and  lowering  rates  of  in- 
terest, instead  of  denoting  financial  strength 
and  industrial  prosperity,  are  a  gauge  of  in- 
creasing prostration."1 

'There  are  some  who  deny  this,  on  the 
ground  that  'money  was  never  so  cheap  as 
now,'  to  use  the  parlance  of  the  market. 

"It  is  true  that  the  rate  of  interest  was  never 
tower,  and  in  that  sense  the  very  inaccurate 
phrase,  'cheap  money,'  is  quite  true.  But  all 
monetary  authorities  know  well  that  the  two 
things  are  quite  distinct. 

"The  rate  (of  interest)  for  the  use  of 
capital,  and  the  purchasing  power  of  gold, 
are  wholly  different  things.  The  former 
varies  with  the  state  of  credit,  the  activity  of 
trade,  etc.,  and  would  do  so  whether  the  pur- 
chasing power  of  gold  were  great  or  small. 

"Indeed,  a  fall  in  prices  has  a  tendency 
to  keep  down  the  rate  of  interest,  as  it 
causes  much  distress,  and  a  want  of  confi- 
dence among  the  commercial  classes;  hence 
unused  capital  accumulates,  and  the  curious 
phenonomen  is  witnessed  of  the  value  of 
money,  i.e.  its  purchasing  power  increasing 
while  the  rate  of  interest  declines.2 


1  Hon.  John  P.  Jones'  speech  in  U.  S.  Senate,  Oct.,  1893. 
\  The  Bimetallic  Question,  by  Samuel  Smith,  M.  P. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

WHAT  IS  MONEY. 
TFirst  published  in  Dr.  Kling's  "Snap  Shots  at  Facts  in  Finance."  J 

There  is  no  such  natural  thing  as  money. 
Money,  therefore,  is  a  function.  That  func- 
tion is  created  by  law.  Money  is  wholly  ar- 
tificial. 

The  creation  of  and  the  issuing  of  money 
constitutes  one  of  the  highest  attributes  of 
sovereignty.  No  other  authority  can  create 
money. 

The  function  performed  by  money  is 
that  of  legal  tender;  this  legal  tender  being 
conferred  upon  the  substances  of  which 
money  is  made,  by  the  sovereign  power- 
the  law  maker.  It  is  this  function  which 
clothes  money  with  its  power  of  exchange 
for  all  commodities,  all  debts,  and  all  labor- 
Mark  this  important  fact :  No  one  can  be 
compelled  to  exchange  anything  for  money 
until  a  contract  in  some  form  is  established 
in  which  money  is  one  term  of  the  agree- 
ment. But  money  being  the  solvent  of  all 
debts,  renders  it  of  "universal  desire  and 
commanding  utility."  "All  money  is  safe 
money,  is  honest  money,  is  sound  money. 
If  it  is  not  all  these  it  is  not  money." 


What  Is  Money  ?  2 1 

No  dollar  of  money  can  be  more  or  less 
than  one  hundred  cents.  Money  is  not  a 
commodity  ;  money  is  not  bought  or  sold. 

The  phrases  premium  or  discount,  for 
money,  are  misleading,  erroneous  and  mis- 
chievous. It  is  only  when  money  is  ex- 
changed for  some  form  of  currency — some- 
thing that  is  not  money  ;  such  as  bank  or 
treasury  notes,  drafts  or  bills  of  exchange- 
that  premiums  or  discounts  apply,  and  be- 
longs to  the  currency,  not  to  the  money. l 
The  payment  for  transfer  of  money  from  one 
place  to  another  by  bank  draft  or  bill  of  ex- 
change is  payment  for  the  service  rendered 
by  the  transfer,  and  does  not  relate  to  any- 
thing else. 

1  About  August  15th,  1893,  the  following  advertisement 
appeared  in  the  New  York  World :  "Wanted— Silver  Dol- 
lars. We  desire  to  purchase  at  a  premium  of  %  per  cent., 
or  $7.50  per  $1,000,  standard  silver  dollars  in  sums  of  $1,000 
dollars  or  more,  in  return  for  our  certified  checks,  payable 
through  the  clearing  house.  Zimmerman  &  Forshay,  bank- 
ers, 11  Wall  Street."  In  this  case  the  combined  credit  of 
the  New  York  Clearing  House,  in  sums  of  $1007.50,  payable 
in  gold,  was  offered  in  exchange  for  $1,000  of  the  abused 
and  maligned  standard  Silver  Dollars.  Why  ?  Because 
silver  dollars  would  pay  debts,  and  certified  clearing  house 
checks  would  not. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

WHAT  IS  CURRENCY  ? 
[First  publisher!  in  Dr.  Klinar*s  "Snap  Shots  of  Facts  in  Finance."] 

In  its  relation  to  money,  currency  proper 
is  'That  which  is  in  circulation  or  is  given 
as  having  representative  value  ;  as  a  curren- 
cy of  a  country, — government,  or  bank  notes 
circulating  as  a  substitute  for  money." 

"A  currency  is  that  thing  or  things  which 
in  the  form  or  semblance  of  money,  cir- 
culates, because  of  the  confidence  of  the 
people  that  it  will  be  accepted  of  the  holder 
thereof  in  payment  of  debts  or  purchases; 
but  which  the  creditor  may  at  any  time,  or 
place,  without  notice,  refuse  to  receive  in 
payment  of  a  contract  stated  in  terms  of 
money." 

"It  is  customary  to  refer  to  the  whole  vol- 
ume of  outstanding  money  and  currency  to- 
gether as  the  currency  in  circulation."  Mon- 
ey circulates  and  is  a  currency,  but  this  fact 
in  no  sense  clothes  a  currency  with  the  money 
function.  National  bank  notes  are  a  form 
of  currency. 

If  your  creditor  may  refuse  to  receive 
that  which  you  tender  in  payment  of  a  money 
obligation,  you  do  not  have  money.     Here 


What  Js  Currency  f  23 

lies  the  true  test  between  money  and  cur- 
rency. Can  the  creditor  refuse  to  receive  it 
of  the  debtor  ?     If  so,  it  is  not  money. 

We  challenge  the  gold  standard  advo- 
cates to  successfully  point  out  error  in  any 
of  the  foregoing  propositions. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MONEY  SUPPLY  VS.  MONEY  DEMAND. 
[First  published  in  Dr.  Kling's  "Snap  Shots  at  Facts  in  Finance."] 

'The  supply  of  money  has  never  equaled 
the  demand  for  money." 

Since  the  time  when  money  became  the 
most  convenient  expedient  of  civilization— 
of  commanding  importance,  and  of  universal 
desire — these  eleven  words  state  the  cause 
of  every  monetary  disaster  in  the  world's 
history. 

They  also  state  the  cause  of  every  mone- 
tary controversy,  including  the  silver  coin- 
age question  of  the  present  day.  The  gigan- 
tic structure  of  debt  of  all  nations,  and  of  all 
peoples,  is  built  upon  the  fact  that  the  de- 
mand for  money  is  greater  than  the  supply. 
The  usury  system  (interest)  could  not  exist 
upon  any  other  condition. 

All  forms  of  credit  devices,  or  substitutes 
for  money,  such  as  bank  notes,  government 
notes,  or  other  promises  to  pay  money,  are 
all  in  evidence  that  the  demand  is  so  great 
that  the  people  will  accept  in  the  place  of 
money  that  stupendous  fraud,  a  promise  to 
pay  from  four  to  six  times  as  many  dollars 
as  there  are  dollars  available  to  pay  with. 


Money  Supply  vs.  Money  Demand.       2 


-d 


The  demand  for  money  is  insatiable.  It 
grows  with  the  development  of  individuals, 
and  of  nations  ;  it  is  as  high  as  human  hope, 
and  boundless  as  human  aspirations  ;  it  is  as 
broad  as  ambition's  tireless  search  ;  it  is  as 
deep  as  the  bottomless  pit;  as  cruel  and  mer- 
ciless as  avarice.  No  other  cause  has  aided 
so  greatly  to  national  ruin.  No  other  con- 
dition that  has  been  the  means  of  holding  / 
humanity  so  absolutely  in  servitude. 

In  the  twentieth  year  of  the  reign  of  Ar- 
taxerxes  there  is  recorded  (Nehemiah  v. 
3-7)  the  case  of  a  province,  a  people,  where 
the  demand,  the  necessity,  for  money  was  so 
great  that  they  had  mortgaged  homes,  lands, 
and  the  growing  crops  on  the  lands.  Not 
only  this,  they  had  mortgaged  their  sons  and 
their  daughters  into  bondage,  and  the  mort- 
gage holder  was  foreclosing  upon  the  lands, 
crops  and  children.  Like  causes  produce 
like  results.  In  the  United  States  the  mort- 
gaged land,  houses,  growing  crops,  Mocks  of 
the  field,  and  the  cattle  upon  the  plains  and 
hills,  is  the  rule,  not  the  exception. 

The  restoration  of  silver  to  its  constitu- 
tional place  as  a  money  metal,  and  the  free 
coinage  of  it  into  money,  would  double  the 
supply  of  money.     The  demand  for  money 


26       Money  Supply  vs.  Money  Demand. 

will  then  be  more  easily  met ;  prices  of  farm 
products,  and  of  all  other  products  of  labor, 
will  increase  ;  and  it  may  be  possible  to  re- 
deem the  land,  the  houses,  the  crops  and  the 
children  from  the  ever-present  burden  of 
debt. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  EVILS  OF  THE  GOLD  VALUATION  OR 
STANDARD. 

Briefly  stated  they  are  : 

i.  Low  prices  of  all  exportable  products. 

2.  Continuing  fall  in  general  prices. 

3.  Destructive  competition  from  silver 
using  countries. 

4.  Increase  of  debt,  both  national  and  pri- 
vate. 

5.  Increasing  divergence  of  the  purchas- 
ing power  of  gold  over  silver. 

6.  A  high  and  unstable  rate  of  exchange. 
That  a  decline  in  general  prices,  taken 

alone,  or  in  connection  with  other  things,  is 
a  destructive  evil,  is  not  open  to  debate. 

That  a  continuing  fall  in  general  prices 
involves  the  transference  from  the  active 
producers  of  wealth  (the  farmer  and  planter), 
of  a  much  larger  proportion  of  production  in 
satisfaction  of  the  fixed  charges  (interest, 
taxes,  and  debts  of  all  kinds)  due  to  the  non- 
producing,  or  passive  owners  of  wealth.  And 
the  fact  that  production  is  large,  and  that 
with  fair  prices  a  greater  abundance  would 
be  available  for  the  payment  of  such  fixed 


28  Evils  of  Gold  Valuation. 

charges.  Such  fact  is  no  justification  for  the 
transference  of  any  part  of  it  from  those -to 
whose  skill  and  labor  such  production  is  due; 
to  those  other  agencies,  who  have  furnished 
neither  skill,  or  labor,  and  to  whom,  there- 
fore, it  is  not  due.  In  justice  the  whole  in- 
crease should  go  to  the  active  agents  of  pro- 
duction. But,  any  fall  in  prices  prevents 
their  participation  in  the  increase  ;  leaving 
them  no  better  off  ;  whilst,  if  there  is  a  fur- 
ther decline,  it  leaves  them  worse  off,  not- 
withstanding the  abundance  which  they  have 
added  to  the  wealth  of  society. 

It  is  important  that  the  American  people 
clearly  understand  that  a  fall  in  the  prices  of 
commodities,  whether  taken  alone  or  in  con- 
junction with  currency  or  money  standards; 
which  involves  the  supply  of  money;  not  on- 
ly retards  the  production  of  wealth,  but  in- 
volves less  wealth  to  be  divided  between 
those  who  produce  it  all  ;  and  more  wealth 
to  be  accumulated  by  those  who  produce 
none  ;  than  would  have  fallen  to  their  re- 
spective shares,  had  there  been  no  appreci- 
ation of  the  purchasing  power  of  money  due 
to  the  gold  standard,  and  to  the  degradation 
of  silver  coins,  to  token   currency  redeem- 


Evils  oj  Gold  I  \iluation.  29 

able  in  gold.1  When  these  conditions  are 
understood,  and  that  such  results  are  due  to 
an  unwise,  if  not  criminal,  policy  on  the  part 
of  administrative  officials  in  the  discharge  of 
grave  official  duty;  and  that  the  only  reme- 
dy possible,  lies  in  the  restoration  of  silver  to 
all  its  ancient  rights  of  mintage  and  func- 
tions of  money,  thereby  increasing  the  vol- 
ume of  money  available  with  which  to  trans- 
act the  business  of  the  country.  And,  when 
that  remedy  shall  be  applied,  much  will  have 
been  done  toward  checking  the  continuing 
decline  in  the  selling  prices  of  exportable 
commodoties.  The  premium  so  long  offered 
to  the  growth  and  export  of  wheat  and  cot- 
ton, from  silver  using  countries,  and  the 
manufacture  of  goods  there,  has  been  so  long 
continued  that  the  destructive  effects  upon 
our  own  industries  can  only  be  checked  by 
depriving  the  exporters  of  the  bounty  of- 
fered in  cheap  silver.  The  increase  of  debts, 
both  national  and  private,  would  at  once 
cease.  Gold  would  possess  no  power  over 
silver  in  making  prices,  or  in  payment. 
And  the  rates  of  foreign  exchange  must  at 
once  decline  with  the  result  of  a  credit  bal- 


1  "Bimetalist"  (London),  December,  1895. 


30  Evils  of  Gold  Valuation. 

ance  of  trade  in  our  favor  and  exchange  on 
London  at  a  discount.1  Such  are  the  natu- 
ral results  following  the  remonetization  of 
silver  by  the  people  of  the  United  States. 


1  See  Mr.  W.  P.  St.  John  on  Exchange  in  reply  to  Objec" 
tion  No.  5. 


CHAPTER  X. 

WHY  THE  PRODUCTIVE  INDUSTRIES  OF  THE 

PEOPLE  WILL  BE  BENEFITED  BY  THE 

FREE  COINAGE  OF  SILVER. 

First.  As  to  the  products  of  the  earth, 
the  primary  source  of  all  wealth. 

The  free  coinage  of  silver  would  so  large- 
ly increase  the  supply  of  money  available  for 
commercial  transactions  that  prices  of  all  ex- 
portable commodities  would  rise,  while  at  the 
same  time  foreign  exchange  would,  of  neces- 
sity, fall ;  resulting  in  an  immense  increase 
of  exports  to  countries  with  a  gold  standard.  1 

It  is  said  that  the  farmer  must  buy  as  well 
as  sell.  True  ;  but  the  law  is  simple.  Pro- 
ducers always  produce  more  than  they  con- 
sume, and  in  the  case  of  a  rise,  theygain  on 
the  whole  amount  produced,  ancMose  only 
on  what  they  purchase.2 

Second.  As  to  the  effect  upon  the  em- 
ployment and  earnings  of  those  engaged  in 
manufactures,  and  the  wage  earner  gener- 
ally. 

As  the  result  of  a  larger  supply  of  money, 

i  See  answer  to  Objection  No.  5. 
2  Monetary  Principles  No.  13. 


Productive  Industries  Benefited. 


a* 


the  purchase  of  foreign  goods  would  be  large- 
ly restricted,  which  would  at  once  set  all  our 
home  manufacturers  at  work,  employing 
operatives  on  full  time  and  increased  wages; 
who  in  turn  become  much  larger  consumers 
of  home  products.  And  this  law  applies  to 
all  occupations  where  labor  is  seeking  em- 
ployment ;  and,  while  the  price  of  food  and 
fabric  would  be  higher,  the  difference  in 
such  cost  would  be  much  more  than  com- 
pensated by  regular  employment  and  the  in- 
creased wages  received.  "High  prices  and 
plenty  are  prosperity ;  low  prices  and  want 
are  misery. ' 

Third.  As  to  the  non-producer,  the  own- 
ers  of  money,  held  for  investment. 

If  the  non-producing  class  should  lose 
temporarily  owing  to  the  increase  in  general 
prices  they  would  in  the  end  be  benefited  by 
the  increased  opportunities  for  investment, 
and  by  the  intensified  demand  for  the  use  of 
capital.1  They  would  also  be  immensely 
benefited  by  the  stability  and  permanence 
given  to  the  value  of  securities  held  for  pres- 
ent or  future  investments. 

The  truth  of  these  three  propositions  can 
be  verified  by  the  experience  of  every  far- 


1  Monetary  Principles  No.  14. 


Productive  Industries  Benefited. 


i  7 


mer,  every  wage  earner,  and  every  holder  of 
securities  in  the  United  States  during  the 
last  three  years.  The  astonishing  thing  is 
that  any  one  among  them  can  be  so  blind  as 
to  advocate  the  gold  standard,  and  conse- 
quent destruction  of  all  values  and  all  in- 
dustries. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

A  PREMIUM  ON  GOLD. 

Much  is  said  about  the  disastrous  effects 
upon  the  people  of  the  United  States  should 
gold  go  to  a  premium;  but  no  clear  state- 
ment is  made  as  to  how  those  effects  will  be 
realized. 

A  case  in  point:  At  Buenos  Ayers,  the 
Capitol  of  the  Argentine  Republic,  gold  has 
been  quoted  as  bearing  a  premium  of  some- 
thing over  250  per  cent,  for  many  years;  and 
there,  if  anywhere,  we  should  look  for  the 
destructive  effects  of  a  premium  on  gold. 

What  are  the  facts?  No  gold-standard 
nation  on  earth  is  as  prosperous  as  is 
the  Argentine  Republic;  not  so  much  be- 
cause of  the  premium  on  gold,  as  because 
they  use  a  large  volume  of  money,  and 
currency  which  enables  national  and  private 
industries  to  be  developed  and  enlarged. 
The  important  fact  to  be  remembered  is, 
that  it  costs  the  Argentine  farmer  and 
planter  no  more  bushels  of  wheat,  no  more 
pounds  of  cotton,  of  the  same  grade  and 
quality,  to  pay  a  debt  of  one  thousand  dol- 
lars in  London — with  a  premium  on  gold, 
no    matter    what    that    premium   may  be— 


A  Premium  on  Gold.  35 

than  it  does  the  farmer  and  planter  in  the 
United  States.  Why  ?  Because  the  prices 
of  those  exportable  articles  are  fixed  in 
London;  and  the  Argentine  producer,  and 
the  United  States  producer,  are  both  in  com- 
petition with  Indian  grown  wheat  and  cot- 
ton; where  silver  has  lost  none  of  its  value 
in  purchasing  and  debt  paying  power.  The 
productive  industries  of  the  United  States 
have  nothing  to  fear  from  a  premium  on 
gold;  but  have  much  to  fear  from  the  gold 
standard. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  GRESHAM  LAW. 

Sir  Thomas  Gresham,  of  London,  Eng- 
land, born  1519,  died  1579,  was  a  successful 
merchant,  and  was  employed  by  Edward  VI. 
in  1 55 1 ,  to  reform  the  financial  affairs  of  the 
kingdom.  Gresham,  as  the  financial  agent  of 
the  government,  conducted  many  secret  ne- 
gotiations, effected  large  loans,  never  omit- 
ting an  opportunity  to  use  the  knowledge  so 
obtained  to  promote  his  private  gains,  so  that 
he  accumulated  great  wealth.1 

In  1 55 1  the  English  money — principally 
silver  coins  of  Spanish  and  English  mintage 
-had  been  so  reduced  in  weight,  by  clipping, 
punching,  filing  and  other  methods,  that  the 
current  money  was  "in  such  a  state  of  confu- 
sion and  fluctuation  that  the  sellers  scarcely 
ever  knew  what  value  they  were  to  receive 
for  their  goods." 

Under  such  conditions,  the  merchants 
having  bills  to  pay  out  of  England,  where  sil- 
ver and  gold  were  received  by  weight,  and 
not  at  the  nominal  value  of  the  coin,  saved 
all  the  full  zaeight  coins  with  which  to  pay  their 

1  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.  McMillan  &  Co., 
London,  1890,  vol.  23,  page  142,  et  seq. 


The  G res ham  Law.  y] 

foreign  debts.  The  result  of  which  was,  that 
all  the  good  (full  weight)  money  was  sent 
out  of  the  country,  and  all  the  bad — poor— 
(light  weight)  money  remained  at  home  and 
was  passed  around  in  exchange  or  in  pay- 
ment of  domestic  purchases  and  debts.  This 
evil  continued  as  long  as  the  government  ac- 
cepted the  light  weight  coins  in  payment  of 
taxes  and  dues  ;  but,  when  the  government 
established  a  limit  of  tolerence  in  weight  at 
which  coins  would  be  received  at  their  nom- 
inal value,  the  discrimination  ceased,  because 
there  was  no  gain  to  the  merchant  by  retain- 
ing the  light  coins  and  exporting  the  sound 
ones. 

The  Gresham  Law  was  first  stated  by 
Aristophanes  the  Greek  Philosopher.  Jevons 
states  the  law  as  comprised  in  two  preposi- 
tions :  'That  bad  money  drives  out  good 
money  ;"  "Good  money  cannot  drive  out  bad 
money."1 

Referring  to  the  condition  of  the  money 
(coins)  of  England  at  the  time  of  Gresham, 
the  "Law"  is  shorn  of  all  difficulties  and  its 
application  freed  from  all  uncertainties. 

For  the  law  to  apply,  the  money  (coins) 


1  Jevons'  Money  and  Mechanism  of  Exchange :  H.  S. 
King,  London,  1876,  page  81. 


3ft<)255 


T)S>  The  Gresham  Laiv. 

must  be  of  the  same  material.  The  law  does 
not  apply  to  money  (coins)  of  different  ma- 
terial, such  as  silver  or  gold.  "Bad  money 
drives  out  good  money  ;"  which  is  the  short 
way  of  saying  that  wherever  light  weight 
coins  can  be  used  in  the  payment  of  taxes 
and  other  public  dues,  at  their  nominal  value, 
such  coins  (bad  money)  will  remain  in  circu- 
lation, and  that  all  full  weight  coins  (good 
money)  will  be  exported  for  the  payment  of 
debts,  not  at  their  nominal  value,  but  by 
weight.  "Good  money  cannot  drive  out  bad 
money ;"  and  for  the  same  reason,  good 
money  (full  weight)  is  gathered  for  export 
where  it  must  be  weighed  and  its  value  cal- 
culated upon  weight.  The  light  weight  coins 
(bad  money)  passing  at  their  nominal  value 
cannot  be  exported  without  loss  to  the  hold- 
er. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  Gresham  Law  ap- 
plies to  coins  of  the  same  kind  of  metal,  not 
to  coins  of  silver  expelling  gold,  or  coins  of 
gold  expelling  silver,  or  a  paper  currency 
properly  limited  and  protected,  expelling 
either  or  both  gold  and  silver. 

The  ratio  adopted  as  the  basis  of  coinage 
may,  under  extraordinary  circumstances,  op- 
erate to  expel  the  undervalued  metal  ;  but 


The  Gresham  J.azu.  39 

the  effect  of  ratio  has  been  much  exaggerated 
and  misrepresented  ;  and  as  ratio  is  not  in- 
volved in  the  Gresham  Law,  it  will  not  be 
discussed  here. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

GREAT  BRITAIN  GUARDS  HER  USURY. 

The  interests  of  English  creditors  are 
plainly  opposed  to  any  movement  calculated 
to  raise  the  value  of  silver  relatively  tt> 
gold.1 

The  maintainance  of  the  gold  standard 
in  the  interest  of  the  creditor  classes  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  the  silver  question,  not 
only  in  Great  Britain,  but  in  the  United 
States.  That  this  should  be  true  in  Eng- 
land, where  the  moneyed  aristocracy  is  se- 
curely intrenched  behind  forms  of  law,  sanc- 
tioned by  usage,  and  which  recognizes  no 
duty,  or  obligation  to  protect  the  rights  of 
the  productive  industries  of  the  people,  need 
not  suprise  the  student;  but  for  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  where  the  people  are 
the  source  and  origin  of  power,  who  are  a 
productive  and  at  present  a  debtor  people, 
to  adopt  such  a  system  is  beyond  reason, 
suicidal  and  destructive. 

The  interest  of  the  moneyed  aristocracy 
are  not  the  interests  of  the  productive  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States.  The  English  bond- 


1  Encyclopedia  Brittanica,  vol.  16,  page  73S. 


Great  Britain  Guards  Her  Usury.       41 

holder's  interest  is  in  usury,  low  prices,  and 
consequent  debt.  All  the  discussion  in  Eng- 
land, in  and  out  of  Parliament,  where  the 
proposition  that  England  shall  re-establish 
the  coinage  of  silver,  making  it  a  full  legal 
tender  money,  is  considered;  the  opposition 
rests  exclusively  upon  the  fact  that  to  do  so, 
would  raise  the  value  of  silver  relatively  to 
gold,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  English 
.creditor. 

Very  early  in  colonial  history  English 
policy  was  directed  towards  exploiting  the 
industries  of  the  American  people.  Acts  of 
Parliament  required  that  the  colonist  should 
use  only  English  ships,  that  purchases  of  all 
goods  should  be  made  in  the  English  market; 
that  manufactures  should  be  discouraged,  if 
not  forbidden.  "That  the  planters  should 
not  be  put  under  too  great  difficulties,  but 
should  be  encouraged  to  go  on  cheerfully, 
because  of  the  high  rate  of  interest  they  paid 
which  was  very  considerable."1 

From  that  time  to  the  present,  England 
has  missed  no  opportunity  to  look  sharply  in 
support  of  the  volume  of  interest  to  be  paid 
her  people;  and  to  protect  that  usury  is  the 

1  Speech  of  Hon.  John  P.  Jones,  Oct.  14-30,  1893     Pa?e 
224.  & 


42       Great  Britain  Guards  Her  Usury. 

supreme  object  of  English  policy  in  its  legis- 
lative enactments  to-day.  The  British  Royal 
Commission  states  the  motives  clearly.  It 
says:  '  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that 
this  country  is  largely  a  creditor  country  of 
debts  payable  in  gold,  and  any  change  which 
entailed  a  rise  in  the  price  of  commodities 
generally,  that  is  a  diminution  of  the  pur- 
chasing power  of  gold — would  be  to  our  dis- 
advantage." 

'The  interest  of  our  Australian  and  other 
colonies,  at  which  we  have  already  glanced, 
must  also  be  considered.  Their  deposits  of 
gold  are  one  of  the  principal  sources  of 
wealth,  and  any  measure  which  tended  to 
check  gold-mining  or  to  depreciate  that 
metal  would,  in  all  probability,  injuriously 
affect  the  prosperity  of  the  colonies,  and  re- 
act upon  the  trade  of  the  mother  country 
with  them." 

In  February,  1893,  Mr.  William  E.  Glad- 
stone, then  prime  minister,  made  a  speech 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  upon  a  motion 
made  looking  towards  the  re-assembling  of 
the  Brussels  Conference  and  to  the  restora- 
tion of  silver  money.  Mr.  Gladstone  said: 
'  England  is  the  great  creditor  of  the  credit- 
or countries  of  the  world;  of  that  there  can 


Great  Britain  Guards  Her  Usury.      43 

be  no  doubt  whatever;  and  it  is  increasingly 
the  great  creditor  of  the  countries  of  the 
world.  I  suppose  that  there  is  not  a  year 
which  passes  over  our  heads  which  does  not 
largely  add  to  the  mass  of  British  invest- 
ments abroad.  I  am  almost  afraid  to  esti- 
mate the  total  amount  of  the  property  which 
the  United  Kingdom  holds  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  United  Kingdom;  but  of  this  I  am  well 
convinced,  that  it  is  to  be  counted  by  tens  or 
hundreds  of  millions  (pounds  sterling). 

"  One  thousand  million  would  probably 
be  an  extremely  low  and  inadequate  esti- 
mate. Two  thousand  million,  or  something 
even  more  than  that,  is  very  likely  to  be 
nearer  the  mark.  |"Hear!  Hear!"]  I  think 
under  these  circumstances  it  is  a  rather  seri- 
ous matter  to  ask  this  country  to  consider 
whether  we  are  going  to  perform  this  su- 
preme act  of  self-sacrifice.  I  have  a  pro- 
found admiration  for  cosmopolitan  princi- 
ples. I  can  go  a  great  length  in  moderation 
I  laughter]  in  recommending  their  recogni- 
tion and  establishment,  but  if  there  are  these 
two  thousand  millions  or  fifteen  hundred  mil- 
lions of  money  which  we  have  got  abroad* 
it  is  a  very  serious  matter  as  between  this 
country  and  other  countries. 


44       Great  Britain  Guards  Her  Usury. 

"  We  have  nothing  to  pay  them;  we  are 
not  debtors  at  all;  we  should  get  no  comfort, 
no  consolation  out  of  the  substitution  of  an 
inferior  material,  of  a  cheaper  money,  which 
we  could  obtain  for  less  and  part  with  for 
more.  We  should  get  no  consolation,  but 
the  consolation  throughout  the  world  would 
be  great." 

Much  more  might  be  quoted  from  the 
speeches  of  the  "Grand  Old  Man,"  who  is 
solicitous  about  the  usury  to  be  received 
upon  these  millions  of  sacred  pounds  sterling. 
He  fails  to  realize  the  distress  in  the  agri- 
cultural and  manufacturing  districts  of  Eng- 
land. He  sees  only  the  benefit  to  the  owner 
of  pounds  sterling  investments  ;  and  he  is 
willing,  nay,  he  insists  that  the  industrial  and 
productive  interest  of  every  debtor  nation 
shall  be  pirated  in  order  that  English  usury 
shall  be  protected.  The  Grand  Old  Man,  in 
his"  anxiety  to  worship  the  golden  calf  of 
English  idolatry,  and  to  secure  the  favor  and 
support  of  that  aristocracy  which  fattens 
upon  usury,  repudiates  and  reviles,  as  un- 
worthy of  notice,  any  productive  interest  of 
the  English  people.  He  treats  them  as  im- 
material, unimportant,  as  of  no  use  or  bene- 
fit to  the  body  politic.     What  matter  that  the 


Great  Britain  Guards  Her  Usury.  45 

cotton  spinner  suffer  the  loss  of  millions  of 
pounds  sterling  (in  this  case  they  are  not  sa- 
cred) in  attempting  to  compete  with  the  cot- 
ton spinner  in  silver  standard  India,  China, 
and  Japan?  What  matter  that  the  English 
farmer  is  crushed  by  the  low  price  of  wheat 
grown  in  silver  standard  countries?  What 
matter  that  poverty  is  increasing  everywhere  x 
What  matter  that  any  or  all  these  evils  which 
work  the  destruction  of  governments,  peo- 
ples, nations,  which  exist  only  by  reason  of 
bad  laws,  or  the  bad  execution  of  good  laws, 
shall  rest  like  a  nightmare  upon  the  English 
people? 

What  matter  ?  says  this  grand  old  humbug, 
this  disgrace  to  statesmanship  !2  What  mat- 
ter? We  must  protect  the  usurer  !  Pounds 
sterling  invested  in  usury  are  very  sacred. 
Pounds  sterling  invested  in  productive  in- 
dustries, which  furnish  employment  to  the 
English  people,  are  of  no  account,  unworthy 


1  "Clearly  then,  whenever  you  see  paupers  in  a  state 
somewhere  in  that  neighborhood  there  are  hidden  away 
thieves  and  cut-prices." — Plato. 

2  "The  true  patriot  (statesman)  in  a  democracy,  ought  to 
take  care  that  the  majority  are  not  too  poor,  for  this  is  the 
cause  of  rapacity  in  the  government."— Aristottle-Politics. 

To  encourage  and  protect  the  productive  industries  of 
a  people  is  the  highest  type  of  statemenship  under  any  form 
of  government. 


46  Great  Britain  Guards  Her  Usury. 

to  be  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  di- 
vine right  of  usury. 

The  British  Royal  Commission,  in  1887, 
answering  the  argument  "that  low  prices  and 
dear  money  help  the  wage  earner,"  said  : 
"That  a  fall  in  prices  benefits  the  capital- 
ists WHO  HAVE  LENT  MONEY  FOR  FIXED  PERI- 
ODS AT  A  FIXED  RATE  OF  INTEREST,  and  in  Such 

cases  a  smaller  share  of  the  product  of  labor 
is  left  to  be  divided  between  the  producer 
(manufacturer)  and  the  wage  earning  class- 
es. 

Here  again  it  is  interest,  usury,  that  is 
benefited  by  falling  prices,  and  the  wage 
earner  injured. 

And  as  long  as  English  gatherers  of  usury 
can  secure  gold  in  payment,  and  purchase 
American  products  at  gold  prices,  just  so  long 
will  the  American  people  be  bondslaves  to 
the  gold  power,  and  will  also  cease  to  be 
their  own  masters,  by  reason  of  constant  de- 
cline in  prices  of  exportable  commodities, 
and  as  constant  increase  in  the  volume  of 
debt. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

•  SILVER,  WHEAT,  COTTON. 

The  low  price  of  silver  operates  as  a 
premium  to  the  growth  and  export  of  wheat 
and  cotton  in  silver  using  countries. 

In  June,  1886,  there  was  held  in  London, 
England,  a  meeting  of  the  British  and  Col- 
onial Chambers  of  Commerce,  at  which  the 
silver  question,  and  its  effects  upon  Eng- 
lish and  Indian  commerce  was  discussed  at 
length. 

In  the  course  of  that  discussion,  Sir  Rob- 
ert N.  Fowler,  an  ex  Lord  Mayor  of  London 
and  a  banker,  said  :  'That  the  effect  of  the 
depreciation  of  silver  must  finally  be  the  ruin 
of  the  wheat  and  cotton  industries  of  Ameri- 
ca, and  be  the  development  of  India  as  the 
chief  wheat  and  cotton  exporter  of  the 
world." 

Mr.  Fowler  did  not  explain  the  details 
by  which  the  wheat  and  cotton  growers  of 
America  were  to  see  those  great  staples 
shrink  in  price  until  there  would  be  no  profit 
to  the  producer  ;  but  he  spoke  with  profound 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  money  which  oper- 


48  Silver,  W lie  at,  Cotton. 

ate  upon  the  great  industries  of  the  com- 
mercial world. 

The  advocates  of  the  gold  standard  ve- 
hemently assert  that  there  is  not,  and  cannot 
be,  any  intimate  relation  of  cause  and  effect 
upon  the  market  price  of  wheat  and  cotton 
dependent  upon  the  market  price  of  uncoined 
silver,1  and  enter  into  absurd  and  impossible 
comparisons  to  prove  their  claims.  Mr. 
Mulhall,  the  English  statistician,  asserts  that 
because  the  manufacture  of  steel  pens  has 
been  largely  increased  while  the  selling  price 
is  much  lower,  therefore  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion must  control  the  selling  price  of  all  com- 
modities. Other  equally  absurd  or  incom- 
petent claims  are  made  in  an  attempt  to 
prove  the  impossible. 

To  state  the  case  with  the  utmost  fair- 
ness, it  is  not  claimed  that  the  London  price 
of  butter,  eggs,  poultry,  apples,  are  directly 
affected  or  controlled  by  the  bullion  price  of 
silver  ;  nor  are  the  prices  of  other  articles 
of  commercial  importance,  but  which  do  not 
come  in  competition  with  articles  of  similar 
nature  and  of  equal  quality  produced  in  In- 
dia, such  as  Indian  corn,  oats   barley,   rye, 

1  It  is  silver  bullion,  not  silver  money,  that  is  under  con- 
sideration. 


Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton.  49 

and  generally  all  meat  products.  These  ar- 
ticles come  under  the  head  of  general  com- 
modities, and  are  affected  by  the  general 
range  of  prices  ;  which  are  in  turn  controlled 
by  the  money  volume  available  in  mercantile 
transactions. 

London,  or  England,  is  the  market  in 
which  is  offered  all  the  surplus  wheat  and 
cotton  grown  in  the  world,  and  it  is  the  price 
of  this  surplus  that  fixes  the  price  of  the  en- 
tire product. 

No  economic  question  more  directly  af- 
fects the  great  mass  of  the  American  people 
than  does  the  price  of  wheat  and  cotton. 
These  are  the  great  staples  upon  which  we 
depend  to  keep  the  balance  of  trade  in  our 
favor,  and  with  which  to  pay  the  ever  in- 
creasing burden  of  interest  upon  bonds  and 
other  evidences  of  debt. 

The  silver  question  is  embodied  in  the 
wheat  and  cotton  question,  and  the  silver 
question  cannot  be  fully  understood  until  the 
wheat  and  cotton  question  is  solved  ;  and  if 
the  low  price  of  silver  is  operating  to  de- 
stroy the  wheat  and  cotton  industries  of  the 
United  States,  it  is  high  time  that  the  proper 
remedy  was  applied. 

Mr.  Fowler's  opinion  was  given  in  1886. 


50  Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton. 

In  the  same  year,  Mr.  Manning,  then  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  of  the  U.  S.,  in  his  sec- 
ond annual  report  said  : 

"It  is  a  direct  consequence  of  the  mone- 
tary dislocation  that  wheat  of  India,  which 
there  fetched  three  rupees1  per  quintal  four- 
teen years  ago,  and  there  fetches  three  ru- 
pees per  quintal  to-day,  can  be  sold  in  Lon- 
don for  as  little  as  the  gold  price  of  three 
rupees  to-day — a  fall  of  25  per  cent.  This 
lowered  price  of  wheat  in  London  has  had 
to  be  met  by  a  lower  price  of  the  American 
wheat  in  London.  *  *  *  The  price  of  our 
surplus  wheat  determines  the  price  of  the 
whole  wheat  crop  of  the  United  States,  so 
that  the  money  dislocation  has  already  cost 
the  farming  population,  who  number  nearly 
one-half  the  total  population  of  the  United 
States,  an  almost  incomputable  sum,  a  loss 
of  millions  upon  millions  of  dollars  every 
year." 

The  secretary  realized  that  wheat,  bought 
with  silver  in  India  and  sold  at  the  g"old 
price  of  wheat  in  London,  was  disastrous  to 
the  American  wheat  grower. 

Mr.   Bagehot,  for   many  years  editor  of 

1  The  standard  silver  coin  of  InJia,  worth,  at  $[.29  per 
fine  ounce,  0.47  37-100  cent. 


Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton.  5  I 

the  London  "Economist,"  in  his  work  on  the 
Depreciation  of  Silver  (page  54)  says  : 

"The  necessary  effect  of  a  depreciation 
of  silver  as  against  gold,  is  to  give  a  bounty 
on  exports  from  India  and  other  silver-using 
countries  to  England.  An  English  merchant 
can  now  buy  more  rupees  than  he  formerly 
could  with  the  same  number  of  sovereigns, 
and  therefore  he  can  import  from  India, 
though  prices  at  Calcutta  are  not  at  a  level 
at  which  it  would  have  paid  him  to  operate 
if  he  had  not  had  that  novel  facility  in  get- 
ting rupees."1 

We  cannot  well  complain  that  the  Eng- 
lish merchant  avails  himself  of  "that  novel 
facility  in  getting  rupees  ;"  but  it  is  our  right 
and  duty  to  complain,  and  to  insist  that  such 
"novel  facility"  shall  not  longer  disgrace  the 
legislative  and  financial  policy  of  this  na- 
tion. 

With  reference  to  the  effect  of  the  com- 
petition of  India  on  the  prices  of  American 
and  English  wheat,  the  British  Royal  Com- 

1  In  1873  the  g°ld  price  of  one  ounce  of  silver  was 
129.29  at  U.  S.  coinage  ratio.  In  1894  the  gold  price  of  an 
ounce  of  silver  was  063.479.  This  premium  of  065. Si  1  per 
bushel  on  wheat  grown  in  India  results  from  that  novel  fa- 
cility in  obtaining  rupees.  The  same  premium  applies  to 
cotton  and  to  all  other  products  from  India  which  come  in 
competition  with  like  articles  exported  from  the  United 
States. 


52  Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton. 

mission  on  gold  and  silver,  in  1887,  exam- 
ined a  number  of  witnesses,  among  them 
Mr.  J.  Shield  Nicholson,  professor  of  politi- 
cal economy  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh, 
and  one  of  the  most  distinguished  econom- 
ists of  Great  Britain.  The  following  ques- 
tion, which  is  precisely  to  the  point,  was  put 
to  the  professor  by  a  member  of  the  Com- 
mission : 

"Indian  wheat  is  the  very  wheat  com- 
plained of  by  Secretary  Manning,  Secretary 
of  the  United  States  Treasury,  as  having 
lowered  the  price  of  European  and  Ameri] 
can  wheat,  and  he  attributes  it  all  to  the  di- 
vergence of  gold  from  silver.  You  do  not 
think  tying  gold  and  silver  again  would  raise 
the  price  of  English  and  American  wheat  by 
25  per  cent  ?" 

To  which  Prof.  Nicholson  replied  : 
"Now  it  seems  to  me  probable,  if  the  price 
of  silver  rose  to  its  old  level,  wheat  could 
not  be  profitably  exported  from  India  until 
prices  rose  in  a  corresponding  degree.  For 
India,  being  a  silver  country,  the  price  of 
wheat  there  is  independent  of  the.  relative  vahie 
of  gold  and  silver.  An  exporter  to  England 
at  present  will  give  the  Indian  price  in  silver, 
and  he  can  buy  his  silver  for  less  gold,  and 


Sliver,  Wheat,  Cotton.  53 

thus  competition  will   lower  the   price.      If 
the  price  of  silver  rose,  the  exporter  from 
India  must  get  more  gold.     Thus  a  rise  oj  sil- 
ver would,   on  this   view,   raise   the  price  of 
wheat  to  a  corresponding  degree."1 

On  the  same  subject,  Prof.  Nicholson  fur- 
ther says,  in  a  recently  published  treatise  on 
Money,  and  Essays  on  Money  Problems, 
page  229 : 

"Now  consider  the  export  trade  of  India, 
with  wheat  for  the  example.  Every  fall  in 
silver  acts  like  a  bounty  on  the  production 
of  wheat  in  India,  and  the  area  under  culti- 
vation is  rapidly  extending.  But  again,  sup- 
pose that  silver  ceases  to  fall  and  that  silver 
prices  begin  to  move  upward.  The  Indian 
producer,  in  this  case,  will  require  more  gold 
than  the  Western  producer;  he  wants  not 
only  the  same  number  of  rupees,  but  more  ; 
and  then  he  can  only  afford  to  sell  for  more 
gold.  But  if  gold  prices  rise  the  West  of 
America  and  the  Lothians  of  Scotland  may 
again  find  it  profitable  to  grow  wheat,  and 
the  Indian  producer  may  suffer.'"'' 

"The  'monetary  dislocation,'  of  which 
Secretary  Manning  wrote,  is  the  variation  in 

t  Hon.  John  P.  Jones,  Oct.,  1893,  page  394. 
2  Hon.  Joseph  C.  Sibley,  Jan.  8,  1895,  page  20. 


54  Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton. 

exchange  between  England,  a  gold  standard 
country,  and  Asiatic  silver  standard  coun- 
tries, a  dislocation  which  accompanied  silver 
demonetization  in  1873  and  has  existed  ever 
since.  The  main  cause  of  it  is  what  Mr. 
Gladstone  calls  the  'perversity'  of  the  rupee, 
the  standard  silver  coin  of  India.  It  was  sup- 
posed to  be  a  universal  rule  that  a  depre- 
ciated currency  resulted  in  increased  prices, 
but  the  rupee  was  so  'perverse'  that  it  re- 
fused to  be  depreciated,  in  fact  never  has 
been  depreciated  in  India,  and  prices,  con- 
sequently, have  not  risen. 

"The  fall  in  the  price  of  silver  bullion  in 
London  has  never  depreciated  the  rupee  in 
India.  It  buys  just  as  much  now  as  it  ever 
did,  so  that  the  Indian  wheat  and  cotton 
grower  can  afford  to  and  does  sell  his  crop 
for  no  more  silver  than  twenty  years  ago, 
but  that  same  silver  can  be  bought  in  Lon- 
don for  fifty  per  cent,  less  than  in  the  year 

1873." 

The  English  dealer  gets  his  cotton  and 
wheat  from  the  East  Indian  for  fifty  per 
cent,  less  gold  now  than  in  1873,  while  the 
East  Indian  sells  now  and  all  the  time  for 
the  same  price  in  silver — an  ounce  of  silver, 
no  matter  what  the  gold  price  of  it  may  be, 


Silver,  Wheal,  Cotton.  55 

buying  as  much  in  India  in  1894  as  it  did  in 

1873- 

In    1893,   General   Warner,   president  of 

the  American  Bimetallic  League,  published 

a  circular  containing  an  analysis  of  "Silver 

in  its  Relation  to  Wheat  and  Cotton."     In  it 

he  said  : 

"We  have  the  highest  authority,  includ- 
ing that  of  two  Royal  Commissions,  for  the 
statement  that  the  Indian  rupee  will  to-day 
buy,  in  India,  as  much  land  or  labor,  or  as 
much  of  any  product,  as  it  would  twenty 
years  ago,  or  at  any  other  period  in  recent 
times. 

"As  a  rupee  contains  180  grains  of  silver, 
an  ounce  of  silver  will  make  a  little  over  2^2 
rupees.  For  a  long  period,  and  continuing 
to  the  present  time,  2%  rupees  (1^  for  the 
wheat  and  1  for  transportation)  would  buy  a 
bushel  of  wheat  in  India  and  lay  it  down 
in  Liverpool. 

At  our  ratio  of  16  to  1,  an  ounce  of  silver 
is  worth  in  gold  $1.2929  ;  that  is,  with  silver 
at  par  with  gold  on  our  ratio,  a  pound  ster- 
ling will  buy  silver  enough  to  make  almost 
exactly  10  rupees  and  the  10  rupees  will  lay 
down  in  Liverpool  4  bushels  of  wheat. 

"With  silver  at  85  cents  an  ounce,  a  pound 


56  Silver,  Wheat,  Cot 'ton. 

sterling  will  buy  very  nearly  6  ounces  of  sil- 
ver, or  enough  to  make  15  rupees  ;  and  the 
rupee  price  of  wheat  being  the  same  in  In- 
dia, 15  rupees  will  lay  down  in  Liverpool  6 
bushels  Indian  wheat,  or  a  bushel  for  an 
ounce  of  silver. 

'Therefore,  when  silver  is  85  cents  an 
ounce,  unless  the  wheat  grower  in  the  United 
States  will  deliver  6  bushels  of  wheat  in  Liv- 
erpool for  a  pound  sterling,  the  Liverpool 
merchant  will  go  to  India  for  his  wheat,  and 
as  cost  of  transportation  from  India  is  re- 
duced, so  much  more  wheat  can  be  delivered 
for  an  ounce  of  silver. 

"On  the  other  hand,  if  silver  was  at  par, 
or  $1.29  an  ounce,  the  wheat  grower  in  the 
United  States  would  have  to  deliver  but  four 
bushels  for  a  pound  sterling. 

"Six  bushels  of  wheat  delivered  in  Liver- 
pool for  a  pound  sterling  is  equivalent  to 
about  yS  cents  in  New  York,  or  say  69  cents 
in  Chicago,  while  four  bushels  for  a  pound 
sterling  in  Liverpool  is  equal  to  $1.19  in  New 
York,  or  $1.10  in  Chicago. 

"Another  way  of  stating  the  same  thing  is 
the  way  it  was  stated  by  Moreton  Frewen,  in 
his  address  before  the  Second  Silver  Con- 
vention at  Washington.     An  ounce  of  silver 


Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton.  57 

bullion  will  always  buy  a  bushel  of  wheat  in 
India  and  pay  transportation  on  it  to  Liver- 
pool. Hence  the  American  farmer  must  also 
lay  down  his  bushel  of  wheat  in  Liverpool 
for  an  ounce  of  silver  bullion.  If  this  ounce 
of  silver  is  worth  but  85  cents  in  gold,  then 
all  the  farmer  can  get  in  gold  is  85  cents  less 
the  cost  the  transporting  the  wheat  to  Liver- 
pool. Therefore,  if  the  farmer  will  deduct 
the  cost  of  transporting  a  bushel  of  wheat 
from  Chicago  to  Liverpool  from  the  price 
of  an  ounce  of  silver,  he  will  have  very 
nearly  the  price  of  a  bushel  of  wheat  in 
Chicago. 

"Assuming  the  cost  of  sending  a  bushel 
of  wheat  from  Chicago  to  Liverpool,  includ- 
ing storage,  insurance  and  brokerage,  to  be 
15  cents,  and  silver  to  be  worth  85  cents  an 
ounce,  then  wheat  in  Chicago  would  be 
worth  70  cents.  But  if  silver  were  at  par, 
as  it  would  be  under  free  coinage,  an  ounce 
of  silver  would  be  worth  $1.29  and  a  bushel 
of  wheat  in  Chicago  would  be  worth  $1.29, 
less  the  cost  of  sending  it  to  Liverpool,  or 
about  $1.14. 

"Hence,  as  silver  rises  above,  or  falls  be- 
low, 85  cents  an  ounce,  so  will  wheat  in  this 


58  Silver,  Wheat,  Lotion. 

country  rise  above  or  fall  below  the  prices 
above  stated. 

"From  the  above  it  will  be  seen  that  while 
the  Indian  farmer  gets  the  same  price,  in 
rupees  for  his  wheat  now  that  he  got  twenty 
years  ago,  the  American  farmer  gets  not 
quite  two-thirds  as  much,  and  the  consumer, 
or  the  middleman,  gets  the  difference.  In 
1873  India  exported  only  730,485  bushels  of 
wheat;  in  1892  India  exported  59,000,000 
bushels. 

"Any  one  can  figure  up  the  loss  to  the 
American  farmer.  It  amounts  to  from  $160,- 
000,000  to  $220,000,000  on  the  wheat  crop  of 
a  single  year. 

"The  effect  on  cotton  and  cotton  manu- 
factures is  the  same  as  on  wheat.  An  Indian 
rupee  will  buy  about  4  pounds  of  cotton, 
and  pay  transportation  to  Liverpool.  As  an 
ounce  of  silver  makes  2%  rupees,  an  ounce 
of  silver  will  buy  io  pounds  of  cotton  and 
lay  it  down  in  Liverpool.  With  silver  at 
$1.29  an  ounce,  a  pound  sterling  will  pay  for 
40  pounds  of  cotton  delivered  in  Liverpool. 
A  pound  sterling  for  40  pounds  of  cotton  in 
Liverpool,  would  be  about  \2Y/2  cts.  a  pound 
for  the  American  planter.  At  85  cents  an 
ounce  for  silver,  a  pound  sterling  will  buy 


Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton.  59 

nearly  6  ounces  of  silver,  which,  converted 
into  rupees,  will  pay  for  60  pounds  of  cotton 
delivered  in  Liverpool.  Sixty  pounds  of  cot- 
ton in  Liverpool  for  a  pound  sterling  is  about 
8  cents  a  pound  there,  or  about  6}£  in  Mem- 
phis. A  large  cotton  crop  in  India,  or  a 
short  crop  here,  will,  of  course,  vary  these 
relations  somewhat,  but  the  general  effect  of 
the  fall  of  silver  is  under-stated  rather  than 
over-stated." 

The  market  prices  of  wheat  and  cotton 
have  fully  proven  that  the  constant  depreci- 
ation of  silver  operates  as  a  premium  to  the 
growing  of  wheat  and  cotton  in  India,  and 
in  the  silver  using  countries. 
□  If  further  evidence  were  needed  that 
there  is  an  intimate  and  uniform  relation 
between  the  gold  price  of  silver  bullion,  and 
the  prices  of  wheat  and  cotton,  the  annexed 
table  of  average  prices  for  twenty-one  years 
in  groups  of  five  years  should  be  conclu- 
sive : 

1873   .... 
1874' 
1878^'  •••• 

1S79I 
1883 j  •••• 
1884/ 
1888 f  •••• 


k'HEAT. 

Cotton. 

Silver. 

I.3I           .. 

..     18.8          .. 

1.29 

1.26 

•  •    i3-24      •• 

l.20}4 

1. 15           .. 

. .    1 1 .00 

IA2}4 

.90S         .    . 

.  .    10.06 

.  .           .9920 

60  Silver,  lfr/ieat,  Cotton. 

';rs<w- 80.6  ....    9.14    92 

1 893  \ 

1894     57     6  -63.479 

The  table  exhibits  slight  variations  in  the 

ratio  of  decline,  taking  silver  as  the  ruling 
factor.  These  differences  may  be  explained 
by  reason  of  short  crops,  famines,  and  in  the 
case  of  silver,  in  1890,  by  the  operation  of 
the  Sherman  Purchase  Act,  which  carried 
the  price  of  silver  in  August  of  that  year  to 
1.20%,  and  must  have  gone  to  its  coinage 
price  had  not  the  then  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  deliberately  nullified  the  manda- 
tory character  of  the  act,  refusing  to  pur- 
chase the  amount  stipulated  in  the  act  by 
794,200  ounces  in  the  month  of  September 
of  that  year,1  which  effectually  stopped  the 
advance  in  the  price  of  silver. 

The  next  step  in  this  analysis  is  to  ascer- 
tain to  what  extent  this  stupendous  and  un- 
usual decline  in  the  prices  of  these  three  ele- 
ments of  national  wealth,  have  affected  the 
wheat  and  cotton  produce,  as  well  as  the 
silver  miner. 

The  wheat  crop  of  the  United  States  for 
the  five  years  1879-1883,  averaged  450,985,- 
000  bushels  each  year.     The  average  price 


1  Ex.  Doc.  No.  56,  51st  Congress,  2nd  Session. 


Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton.  61 

$[.15  per  bushel.1  Average  yearly  value  of 
the  wheat  crop,  $518,632,750.  This  sum  re- 
presents the  total  crop;  the  surplus  of  which 
represents  the  sum  the  wheat  growers  had 
to  apply  to  the  payment  of  debts  interest, 
taxes,  and  the  purchase  of  goods,  and  pro- 
ducts of  manufactures.  It  represents  the 
freight  to  be  carried  by  the  railroads  and 
means  employment  to  millions  in  transpor- 
tation, shops  and  mills.  It  means  a  degree 
of  prosperity  to  the  wheat  grower,  and  pros- 
perity and  employment  to  the  wage  earn- 
ers. 

Fen  years  later  the  wheat  crop  had  fal 
len  to  396,132,000  bushels,  and  the  price  to 
68  cents  a  bushel.  The  total  value  of  the 
crop  to  $269,369,760.  It  is  the  surplus  of  this 
sum  that  could  be  applied  to  the  payment 
of  debts,  interest  and  taxes,  or  to  the  pur- 
chase of  goods  of  any  kind.  Here  is  a  loss 
to  the  American  producer  of  wheat  in  one 
year,  when  compared  with  the  average  of 
5  years — 1879-1883 — of  $249,262,990.  There 
was  no  surplus  to  apply  to  anything.  This 
loss  represents  a  sum  quite  sufficient  to  ac- 
count for  the  decline  in  railroad  earnings, 
the    closing   of    manufactories,    shops    and 


1  No.  2  Wheat  in  Chicago  Market. 


62  Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton. 

mills,  and  the  general  depression  in  all  kinds 
of  business. 

The  most  important  purchasers  of  goods 
and  merchandise  had  their  ability  to  purchase 
annihilated  by  the  decline  in  crop  and  price, 
and  the  falling  off  in  crop  was  the  result  of 
previous  and  continuing  decline  in  price. 
All  of  which  verifies  and  confirms  the  pre- 
diction of  Mr.  Fowler,  "that  the  effect  of  the 
depreciation  of  silver  must  finally  be  the 
ruin  of  the  wheat  and  cotton  industries  of 
■  America,  and  be  the  development  of  India 
as  the  chief  wheat  and  cotton  exporter  of 
the  world." 

The  wheat  and  cotton  industries  of  Amer- 
ica cannot  be  maintained  on  a  gold  standard 
for  money.  They  cannot  compete  with  the 
premium  offered  by  the  low  price  of  silver 
to  the  wheat  and  cotton  grower  of  India  and 
the  silver  using  countries. 

With  silver  restored  to  coinage  in  the 
United  States,  the  European  dealer  in  those 
Asiatic  commodities  which  come  most  directly 
in  competition  with  the  products  of  the  United 
States,  will  then  be  obliged  to  pay  two  sov- 
ereigns in  gold  for  the  silver  which  he  now 
purchases  for  one.  The  silver  which  costs 
two  sovereigns  of  gold  will  buy  no  more  wheat 


Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton.  63 

or  cotton  in  India,  than  does  the  silver  which 

now  costs  him  one  sovereign  in  gold.  There- 
fore he  cannot  sell  those  articles  in  Europe 
except  at  an  advance  in  price,  to  corres- 
pond with  the  increased  gold  cost.  Hence 
London  prices  must  be  nearly  if  not  quite 
doubled. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  CRIME  OF  1 873. 

"Remove  not  the  ancient  landmark,  which  thy  fathers  have  set.  ' 

— Provekbs  22  :  28. 

"Cursed  be  he  that  removeth  las  neighbour's  landmark.  And  all 
the  people  shall  say  Amen.— Deut.  27  :  17. 

"If  a  debt  is  created  with  a  certain  amount  of  money  in  circula- 
tion and  then  the  government  contracts  tho  money  volume  before  the 
debt  ispaid.it  is  the  most  heinous  crime  which  a  government  can 
commit  against  the  people."— Abraham  Lincoln. 

It  is  sometimes  claimed  that  the  advo- 
cates of  the  restoration  of  the  laws  of  the 
Republic  as  they  were  prior  to  the  "treacher- 
ous and  deceptive  act  of  1873"  do  not  clearly 
point  oat  the  nature  of  the  crime.  The  in- 
dictment is  easily  written  and  the  proof  suf- 
ficient to  convict ! 

First,  The  act  was  done  by  indirection, 
by  stealth.  No  political  party  had  put  any 
such  purpose  in  its  platform.  No  candidate 
for  any  office  had  suggested  to  the  voters  any 
such  intent,  much  less  had  the  candidates  for 
the  Presidency  expressed  their  views  upon 
so  important  a  question.  The  people  were 
not  consulted  or  even  informed  as  to  the  pur- 
pose of  the  act. 

Second,  All  contracts  of  debt  were  based 
upon  a  large  volume  of  paper  currency,  and 
were  payable  in  such  currency,  or  in  coins  of. 


The  Crime  of  iSjj.  65 

the  standard,  as  provided  by  law  on  the  18th 
day  of  March,  1869,  silver  and  gold. 

Third.  The  act  took  from  the  people  one- 
half  their  legal-tender  coin,  which,  in  its  ef- 
fects, struck  down  all  prices,  and  compelled 
the  payment  of  all  debts  in  money,  the  vol- 
ume of  which  had  been  contracted  in  viola- 
tion of  the  equities  between  debtors  and 
creditors,  and  in  derogation  of  the  sovereign- 
ty of  the  people. 

Fourth.  By  this  act  the  ancient  landmark 
of  money,  set  up  by  the  fathers,  sanctified  by 
more  than  two  hundred  years  of  legal  enact- 
ment, and  by  immemorial  use,  was  stealthily, 
by  theft  and  by  unconstitutional  methods, 
which  do  not  possess  the  moral  force  of  law, 
removed,  and  a  new  and  alien  landmark  of 
money  set  up  in  fraud  of  the  rights  of  the 
people. 

THE  PROOF. 

Senator  Howe,  of  Wisconsin,  what  do  you 
know  of  this  matter  ? 

"Mr.  President,  I  do  not  regard  the  de- 
monetization of  silver  as  an  attempt  to  wrench 
from  the  people  more  than  they  agreed  to 
pay.  That  is  not  the  crime  of  which  I  ac- 
cuse the  act  of  1S73.  I  charge  it  with  guilt, 
compared  with  which  the  robbery    of  two 


66  The  Crime  of  iSyj. 

hundred    millions   is  venial  ! '-  -(Senator  T. 
O.  Howe's  speech,  February  5th,  1878.) 

Here  we  have  crime,  guilt,  and  robbery 
charged  to  the  act  of  1873. 

Hon.  John  M.  Bright,  of  Tennessee  : 

"It  passed  by  fraud  in  the  house,  never 
having  been  printed  in  advance,  being  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  printed  bill;  never  having  been 
read  at  the  clerk's  desk,  the  reading  having 
been  dispensed  with  by  an  impression  that 
the  bill  made  no  material  alteration  in  the 
coinage  laws  ;  it  was  passed  without  discus- 
sion, debate  being  cut  off  by  operation  of  the 
previous  question.  It  was  passed,  to  my  cer- 
tain information,  under  such  circumstances 
that  the  fraud  escaped  the  attention  of  some 
of  the  most  watchful  as  well  as  the  ablest 
statesmen  in  congress  at  the  time.  *  *  .*  * 
Ay,  sir,  it  was  a  fraud  that  smells  to  heaven. 
It  was  a  fraud  that  will  stink  in  the  nose  of 
posterity,  and  for  which  some  persons  must 
give  account  in  the  day  of  retribution." — 
(Mr.  Bright,  of  Tennessee,  in  "Congressional 
Record,"  vol.  7,  part  1,  second  session,  Forty- 
fifth  congress,  page  584.) 

Mr.  Bright  says  that  the  act  was  a  fraud 
that  will   stink   in  the  nose  of   posterity,— 
which  has  been  true  these  many  years. 


The  Crime  of  iSjj.  67 

We  call  Hon.  William  S.  Holman,  of  In- 
diana, who  says : 

"I  have  before  me  the  record  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  this  House  on  the  passage  of  that 
measure,  which  no  man  can  read  without 
being  convinced  that  the  measure  and  the 
method  of  its  passage  through  this  House 
was  a  colossal  swindle.  I  assert  that  the 
measure  never  had  the  sanction  of  this 
House,  and  it  does  not  possess  the  moral 
force  of  law."  -(Mr.  Holman,  of  Indiana,  in 
"Congressional  Record,"  vol.  4,  part  6,  Forty- 
fourth  Congress,  first  session  appendix,  page 

I93-) 

Mr.  Holman  says  the  passage  of  the  act 

was  a  colossal  swindle,  and  that  it  does  not 

possess  the  moral  force  of  law. 

Samuel  B.  Burchard,  of  Illinois,  is  the 
next  witness : 

"The  coinage  act  of  1873,  unaccompanied 
by  any  written  report  upon  the  subject  from 
any  committee,  and  unknown  to  the  mem- 
bers of  Congress  who,  without  opposition  al- 
lowed it  to  pass,  under  the  belief,  if  not  as- 
surance, that  it  made  no  alteration  in  the 
value  of  the  current  coins,  changed  the  unit 
of  value  from  silver  to   gold."  -(Mr.   Bur- 


68  The  Crime  of  1S73. 

chard,  of  Illinois,  in  "Congressional  Record," 
July  13,  1876,  page  584.) 

What  a  flood  of  light,  upon  a  dark  and 
mysterious  enactment ! 

Senator  Voorhees  of  Indiana,  you  were  a 
member  of  the  United  States  Congress  in 
February,  1878.  What  have  you  to  say  upon 
the  methods  by  which  the  act  of  February 
1 2th,  1873,  was  passed? 

"The  silver  dollar  is  peculiarly  the  labor- 
ing man's  dollar,  as  far  as  he   may  desire 
specie.  *  *  *    Throughout   all  the  financial 
panics  that   have  assailed    this  country,  no 
man  has  been  bold  enough  to  raise  his  hand 
to  strike  it  down;  no  man  has  ever  dared  to 
whisper  of  a  contemplated  assault  upon  it; 
and  when   the   12th  of  February,   1873,  ap- 
proached, the  day  of  doom  to  the  American 
dollar,  the  dollar  of  our  fathers,  how  silent 
was  the  work  of  the  enemy  !     Not  a  sound, 
not  a  word,  no  note  of  warning  to  the  Ameri- 
can people  that  their  favorite  coin  was  about 
to  be  destroyed  as  money;  that  the  greates4- 
financial  revolution  of  modern  times  was  in 
contemplation  and  about  to  be  accomplished 
against  their   highest   and    dearest   rights ! 
The  taxpayers  of  the  United  States  were  no 
more  notified  or  consulted  on  this  moment- 


The  Crime  of  /Syj.  69 

ous  measure  than  the  slaves  on  a  southern 
plantation  before  the  war,  when  their  master 
made  up  his  mind  to  increase  their  task  or 
to  change  them  from  a  corn  to  a  cotton  field. 
Never  since  the  foundation  of  the  govern- 
ment has  a  law  of  such  vital  and  tremendous 
import,  or  indeed  of  any  importance  at  all, 
crawled  into  our  statute  books  so  furtively 
and  noiselessly  as  this.  Its  enactment  there 
was  as  completely  unknown  to  the  people, 
and  indeed  to  four-fifths  of  Congress  itself, 
as  the  presence  of  a  burglar  in  a  house  at 
midnight  to  its  sleeping  inmates.  This  was 
rendered  possible  partly  because  the  clandes- 
tine movement  was  so  utterly  unexpected 
and  partly  from  the  nature  of  the  bill  in  which 
it  occurred.  The  silver  dollar  of  American 
history  was  demonetized  in  an  act  entitled, 
"An  act  revising  and  amending  the  laws  rel- 
ative to  the  mints,  assay  offices  and  coinage 
of  the  United  States." — (See  speech  of  Sen- 
ator Voorhees  in  "Congressional  Record," 
January  15,  1878,  page  332.) 

This  testimony  alone  is  sufficient  to  prove 
the  crime,  to  expose  the  methods. 

We  now  offer  the  Chicago  "Tribune"  of 
January   18th,   1878,  when  it  was   honester, 


yo  The  Crime  oj  i8jj. 

wiser,  more  patriotic  than  it  now  is.  The 
'Tribune"  of  that  date  says  editorially : 
'The  clause  in  the  consolidated  mint  bill 
stopping  the  coinage  of  silver  dollars  was  fur- 
tively inserted,1  not  one  member  in  Congress 
in  fifty  knew  of  it  ;  not  one  man  in  the  thou- 
sands outside  of  Congress  knew  anything 
about  it." 

Senator  Morgan,  did  the  people  demone- 
tize silver? 

"Did  the  people  demonetize  silver?  Nev- 
er! It  cannot  even  be  fairly  said  that  Con- 
gress did  it.  It  was  done  in  a  corner  darkly. 
It  was  done  at  the  instigation  of  the  bond- 
holders and  other  money  kings,  who  now  with 
upturned  eyes,  deplore  the  wickedness  we 
exhibit  in  asking  the  question  even,  who  did 
the  great  wrong  against  the  toiling  millions 
of  our  people." — (Senator  Morgan,  in  "Con- 
gressional Record,"  Dec.  12,  1877,  Page  T44-) 

Senator  Jas.  B.  Beck,  of  Kentucky,  what 
answer  do  you  make? 

"I  know  that  the  bondholders  and  mon- 
opolists of  this  country  are  seeking  to  de- 
stroy all  the  industries  of  this  people,  in  their 
greed  to  enhance  the  value  of  their  gold.  I 
know  that  the  act  of  1873  did  more  than  all 

X  Stealthily,  by  theft. 


The  Crime  oj  iSjj.  71 

else  to  accomplish  that  result,  and  the  de- 
monetization act  of  the  Revised  Statutes  was 
an  illegal  and  unconstitutional  consummation 
of  the  fraud.  I  want  to  restore  that  money 
to  where  it  was  before,  and  thus  aid  in  pre- 
venting the  consummation  of  their  designs." 
(Speech  by  Senator  Beck  of  Kentucky,  page 
258,  "Congressional  Record,"  Jan.  11,  1878.) 

John  G.  Carlisle,  on  Feb.  21st,  1878,  at 
that  time  a  member  of  Congress  (House) 
from  Kentucky,  now  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, when  speaking  upon  the  Bland  Bill  of 
1878,  used  the  following  prophetic  words  : 

"I  know  that  the  world's  stock  of  precious 
metals  is  none  too  large,  and  I  see  no  reason 
to  apprehend  that  it  will  ever  become  so. 
Mankind  will  be  fortunate,  indeed,  if  the  an- 
nual production  of  gold  and  silver  coin  shall 
keep  pace  with  the  annual  increase  of  popu- 
lation, commerce  and  industry.  According 
to  my  view  of  the  subject,  the  conspiracy 
which  seems  to  have  been  formed  here  and 
in  Europe  to  destroy  by  legislation  and  other- 
wise from  three-sevenths  to  one-half  of  the 
metallic  money  of  the  world,  is  the  most  gi- 
gantic crime  of  this  or  any  other  age.  The 
consummation  of  such  a  scheme  would  ulti- 
mately entail  more  misery  upon  the  human 


72  The  Crime  of  iSyj. 

race  than  all  the  wars,  pestilence  and  famine 
that  everoccurred  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
The  absolute  and  instantaneous  destruction 
of  half  the  entire  movable  property  of  the 
world,  including  houses,  ships,  railroads  and 
all  other  appliances  for  carrying  on  com- 
merce, while  it  would  be  felt  more  sensibly 
at  the  moment,  would  not  produce  anything 
like  the  prolonged  distress  and  disorganiza- 
tion of  society  that  must  inevitably  result 
from  the  permanent  annihilation  of  one-half 
of  the  metallic  money  in  the  world." — (Rec- 
ord Forty-fifth  Congress,  volume  7,  appen- 
dix 41.) 

Conspiracy  and  crime  are  here  charged 
to  the  act  of  1873. 

President  Grant,  when  you  signed  the  act 
of  February  12th,  1873,  did  you  know  that  it 
demonetized  silver? 

In  place  of  direct  testimony  we  submit 
the  following : 

On  the  14th  of  January,  1875,  tne  Presi- 
dent approved  an  act  providing  for  the  re- 
sumption of  specie  payments  on  the  1st  of 
January,  1879. 

When  the  President  returned  to  the  sen- 
ate the  act  approved,  he  sent  with  it  a  special 
message  in  which  he  sharply  called  the  atten- 


The  Crime  of  iSjj.  73 

tion  of  the  Congress  to  the  necessities  of  the 
country,  in  the  following  language  : 

"In  fact,  to  carry  out  the  first  section  of 
the  act,  another  mint  becomes  necessary. 
With  the  present  facilities  for  coinage  it 
would  take  a  period  probably  beyond  that 
fixed  by  the  law  (to-wit,  1st  January,  1879)  for 
final  specie  resumption,  to  coin  the  silver  ne- 
cessary to  transact  the  business  of  the  coun- 
try.1 

Two  facts  are  prominently  brought  to 
the  attention  of  Congress  by  this  message. 
First,  That  silver  coins  were  necessary  for  the 
transaction  of  the  business  of  the  country,  and 
that  such  coins  were  a  part  of  the  specie  con- 
templated in  the  first  section  of  the  act  ap- 
proved. Second,  That  mint  facilities  were  in- 
adequate to  carry  out  the  provisions  con- 
tained in  the  first  section  of  the  act,  and  that 
another  mint  was  necessary. 

The  act  of  1873  was  approved  February 
1 2th  of  that  year.  This  special  message  was 
dated  January  14th,  1875.  If  President  Grant 
had  known  that  the  '73  act  had  deprived  the 
people  of  the  right  to  use,  the  power  to  use, 
silver  as  money  in  the    transaction    of   the 

1  "Congressional  Record,"  January  14,  1875. 
McPherson's  Hand-Book,  1876,  page  147. 


74  The  Crime  0/1873. 

business  of  the  country,  can  any  one  believe 
that  the  President  would  so  far  stultify  him- 
self as  to  specially  recommend  the  expense 
of  erecting  and  equipping  a  new  mint  for  the 
purpose  of  coining  silver,  which  could  not  be 
used  to  transact  the  business  of  the  coun- 
try? 

It  must  be  conceded  that  twenty-three 
months  aftersigning  the  act  of  February  12th, 
1873,  the  President  was  unaware  that  the 
effect  of  that  act  was  to  take  silver  coins  out 
of  the  legal  tender  specie  available  for  use 
in  the  business  affairs  of  the  country. 

That  the  President  was  deceived  as  to  the 
purpose  and  effect  of  the  act  of  1873  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt.  The  following 
from  a  letter  written  by  ex-Attorney  General 
Pierrepont,  a  member  of  the  President's  cabi- 
net, is  specific  and  conclusive: 

"Fifth  Avenue,  N.  Y.,  Sept.  24th,  1890. 

******  * 

"It  is  very  certain  that  under  the  Constitu- 
tion silver  and  gold  are  both  equally  money 
metals.  Congress  have  no  power  to  de- 
monetize gold  or  silver.  The  deceptive  and 
treacherous  act  of  February  12th,  1873,  which 
deceived  even  General  Grant,  who  signed  it, 
and  about  which  General  Grant,  when  I  was 


The  Crime  of  1873.  75 

in  his  cabinet,  spoke  to  me  about  the  fraud 
and  deception  practiced  upon  him.  Nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that  an  act  passed  to 
banish  gold  from  the  mint  would  be  void  as 
unconstitutional,  and  that  the  act  of  1873  to 
demonetize  silver  was  certainly  void  under 
the  constitution.  If  Congress  had  the  power 
to  demonetize  silver,  it  had  the  power  equally 
gold  and  silver  both."  -Signed  Edwards 
Pierrepont. 

On  the  13th  of  September,  1877,  the 
Hon.  W.  S.  Groesbeck  made  the  following 
statement  before  the  American  Bankers' 
Association,  then  in  session  in  New  York 
City  : 

"In  1873  anc'  1874  I  believe  without  a  sin- 
gle recommendation  from  the  press,  or  from 
Boards  of  Trade  or  Chambers  of  Commerce, 
or  from  any  other  direction,  and  when  for 
the  first  time,  our  public  debt  had  become 
heavy  and  burdensome,  and  private  indebt- 
edness was  larger  than  ever  before,  and  we 
were  in  a  state  of  suspension  upon  the  cur- 
rency, amounting  to  more  than  seven  hun- 
dred millions;  in  such  an  exigency  and  with 
the  knowledge  that  we  were  richer  in  mines 
of  silver  than   any  nation  on  the  globe,  we 


y6  The  Crime  of  iSyj. 

threw  our  silver  away  and  set  up  gold 
alone.1 

On  December  27th,  1877,  Murat  Halstead 
(formerly  editor  of  the  Cincinnati  "Commer- 
cial") published  in  the  New  York  "Nation" 
over  his  own  signature  these  words: 

"I  have  advertised  in  vain  for  a  member 
of  Congress  who  can  say  that  he  voted  for  the 
demonetization  of  silver  knowing  when  he 
cast  his  vote  what  it  meant.  I  have  appealed 
to  the  press  for  an  editorial  article  published 
in  the  year  1873  or  1874  for  or  against  the 
change  from  the  double  to  the  single  stand- 
ard ;  and  the  conclusion  is  that  no  such  ar- 
ticle appeared  in  any  American  newspaper.  2 

Our  last  witness  is  the  venerable  Thurlow 
Weed,  who,  in  a  letter  published  in  the  New 
York  "Tribune,"  January  10th,  1878,  insisted 
that  silver  had  been  "wrongfully  demone- 
tized" and  that  "the  wrong  must  be  righted." 

"All  schemes  and  laws  having  for  their 
object  the  repudiation  of  silver  money,  will 
encounter  a  resistance  equally  indignant  and 
inflexible.3 

In  this   proof  of  "the  crime  of   1873"  no 

1  "Coin,"  August  28th,  1893. 

2  "Coin,"  August  28th,  1893. 

a  "Shylock,"  by  Gorden  Clark,  page  99,  Note. 


The  Crime  of  iSyj.  J 7 

attempt  has  been  made  to  follow  and  expose 
the  devious  methods  by  which  that  act  was 
finally  sneaked  into  the  statute  books. 

More  than  twenty  of  the  leading  states- 
men and  politicians  of  that  time,  nearly  all 
of  whom  were  members  of  the  Congress  in 
1873,  have  given  clear  and  forcible  expres- 
sion in  relation  to  the  methods  attending  the 
passage  of  that  act  and  the  criminal  nature 
of  those  methods. 

We  have  offered  the  testimony  of  eleven 
of  this  number,  seven  of  whom  were  mem- 
bers of  the  Congress  that  in  form,  passed 
the  coinage  act  of  iS*]?,. 

In  the  presence  of  this  unimpeachable 
testimony,  the  claim  that  because  certain 
other  bills  in  relation  to  coinage  were  print- 
ed many  times,  and  that  many  columns  of  the 
"Congressional  Record"  were  taken  up  in 
printing  such  other  bills,  which  could  not  be 
passed,  therefore  the  people  were  fully  ad- 
vised and  approved  the  passage  of  the  SUB- 
STITUTE BILL  THAT  WAS    NEVER  PRINTED, *NEVER 

read,  is  shorn  of  all  strength,  and  the  miser- 
able subterfuge,  hurtless  falls  at  the  feet  of 
truth  dishonored,  disarmed,  beyond  the 
power  of  audacity  and  mendacity  to  give  it 
credence  in  the  minds  of  honest  men. 


78  The  Crime  of  1873. 

To  briefly  summarize  the  testimony  so 
far  offered,  it  is  found  that  there  is  charged 
to  this  act,  and  to  the  methods  by  which  it 
was  passed,  the  following  array  of  crimes, 
and  conspiracies : 

Crime!  Guilt!  Robbery!  Was  never  read, 
never  printed,  a  substitute. 

Fraud  that  will  stink! 

Colossal  Swindle!  Does  not  possess  the 
moral  force  of  law. 

No  report  from  any  committee!  Unknown 
to  members  of  Congress,  allowed  to  pass, 
under  belief,  if  not  assurance,  that  no  altera- 
tion in  current  coins. 

Taxpayers  not  notified  or  consulted! 
Crawled  into  our  statute  books  furtively  and 
noiselessly.  No  man  dared  to  whisper  of  a 
contemplated  assault  upon  it  (the  silver 
dollar) . 

Was  furtively  inserted — (stealthily  by 
theft) !  Cannot  be  fairly  said  Congress  did 
it.     It  was  done  in  a  corner  darkly. 

Bondholders  and  Monopolists  seek  to 
destroy  all  industries  of  this  people.  An 
illegal  and  unconstitutional  consummation 
of  the  fraud. 

Conspiracy!  The  most  gigantic  crime  of 
this  or  any  other  age! 


The  Crime  of  iSyj.  79 

Fraud  and  deception  practiced  upon  the 
President,  who  signed  the  bill! 

Heinous  Crime! 

Removed  the  ancient  landmark  of  money 
which  the  fathers  had  set  up. 

There  are  enumerated  twenty-two  spe- 
cific crimes  against  honesty,  public  policy  and 
legislative  integrity,  by  means  of  which  the 
coinage  act  of  1873  crawled  into  the  statutes, 
crimes  in  violation  of  constitutional  authori- 
ty, and  in  derogation  of  the  sovereign  will 
of  the  people  ;  crimes  which  would  compel 
any  grand  jury  in  the  United  States  to  find 
a  true  bill,  were  this  evidence  presented  to 
them  for  action. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  WAGE  EARNERS. 

"Ye  have  sown  much  and  bring  in  little:  ye  eat,  but  ye  have  not 
enough ;  yo  drink,  but  are  not  filled  with  drink ;  ye  clothe  you,  but 
there  is  none  warm  ;  and  he  that  earneth  wages  earneth  wages  to  put 
it  into  abag  ivith  holes." — Haggai  1 :6 

"High  prices  and  plenty  arc  prosperity;  low  prices  and  want  are 
misery."— Adam  Smith. 

If  any  fact  in  political  economics  has  been 
established  and  accepted  by  all  thinkers  and 
recognized  authorities  upon  the  subject,  it  is 
that  falling  prices  of  commodities  generally 
must  be  accompanied  with  disaster  to  those 
who  depend  upon  employment,  at  remuner- 
ative wages,  for  the  support  of  themselves 
and  their  families.1 

The  argument  is  offered  that  the  wage 
earners  will  oppose  the  restoration  of  sil- 
ver, because  the  effect  will  be  to  increase 
the  cost  of  food,  clothing,  rent,  and,  gener 
ally,  of  all  those  things  which  enter  into  their 
daily  household  expenses.  Which  argument 
seems  to  be  based  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  rate  of  wages,  and  the  time  employed, 
will  remain  the  same  under  the  constantly 

1  "Falling  prices,  misery  and  destruction  are  inseparable 
companions.  The  disasters  of  the  dark  ages  were  caused  by 
decreasing  money  and  falling  prices.  With  the  increase  of 
money,  labor  and  industry  gain  new  life." — David  Hume. 


Wage  Earners.  8 1 

falling  prices  induced  by  the  inadequate 
money  volume  under  the  gold  standard. 

There  may  be  cases  where,  through  the 
agency  of  labor  unions,  the  rate  of  wages 
has  been  maintained  to  those  who  have  been 
given  employment,  which  has  resulted  to  the 
great  disadvantage  of  those  who  suffered 
from  loss  of  their  whole  time,  or  were  em- 
ployed only  a  small  fraction  of  their  working 
hours.  Such  cases,  however,  are  not  numer- 
ous enough  to  operate  in  favor  of,  or  against, 
the  general  law,  that  falling  prices  are  inju- 
rious to  the  wage  earner,  and  falling  prices 
are  always  and  necessarily  attendant  upon  a 
contraction  of  the  money  volume. 

To  the  argument  that  low  prices  and  dear 
money  are  beneficial  to  the  wage  earners, 
the  British  Royal  Commission,  appointed  in 
1887  to  inquire  as  to  the  changes  in  the  rela- 
tive values  of  the  precious  metals,  said  : 

"That  a  fall  in  prices  benefits  the  capital- 
ists who  have  lent  money  for  fixed  periods 
at  a  fixed  rate  of  interest,  and  in  such  cases 
a  smaller  share  of  the  products  of  labor  is 
left  to  be  divided  between  the  producer  and 
the  wage  earning  classes.  It  is  difficult  to 
suppose  that  the  latter  (the  wage  earner) 
can  for  any  length  of  time  receive  larger  real 


82  Wage  Earners. 

wages  out  of  the  smaller  share  of  the  gross 
products  of  labor  which  is  devisible  between 
themselves  and  the  producer." 

There  is  no  escaping  the  justness  of  these 
conclusions  as  stated  by  the  Commission. 

Let  no  wage  earner  suppose  for  a  mo- 
ment that  he  can  secure  to  himself  more 
than  his  distributive  share  of  the  "gross  pro- 
duct" of  the  sale  of  commodities  by  the  pro- 
ducers of  them. 

There  is  another  element  which  must  be 
considered,  because  it  is  not  the  least  of  the 
factors  operating  upon  the  wage  earner's 
prosperity.  It  is  this:  About  one-half  of  the 
entire  population  of  the  United  States  are 
in  some  way  connected  with  the  cultivation 
of  the  soil.  They  are  the  great  consumers 
of  the  products  of  the  shop  and  mill.  When 
the  prices  of  the  great  staples  of  the  farm 
and  plantation  are  such  that  the  owners  re- 
ceive remunerative  compensation  therefor, 
they  in  turn  become  buyers  of  all  kinds  of 
goods  and  fabrics,  and,  as  a  result,  shops, 
mills  and  factories  are  full  of  orders,  and  the 
wage  earner  not  only  receives  full  wages 
but  has  employment  on  full  time.  It  was 
with  the  spirit  of  prophesy  that  Adam  Smith, 


Wage  Earners.  83 

the  father  of  the  science  of  political  econ- 
omy, said  : 

"High  prices  and  plenty  are  prosperity; 
low  prices  and  want  are  misery." 

Industry,  properly  directed,  creates  wealth ; 
but  in  its  last  analysis  all  wealth  rests  upon 
and  must  be  sustained  by  production  from 
the  great  source  of  wealth,  the  soil.  There- 
fore it  becomes  the  first  duty  of  legislators 
to  see  to  it  that  the  highest  possible  price 
shall  be  secured  to  the  producers  of  those 
great  staples  of  wealth,  for  by  so  doing  all 
industries  will  be  equally  benefited  and  en- 
larged. 

The  land  and  its  products  are  the  sources 
of  all  wealth  and  of  all  prosperity;  the  pro- 
ductive capacity  of  which  constitutes  the  ba- 
sis of  national  credit,  creating  and  support- 
ing its  foreign  and  domestic  commerce. 

But  should  those  great  staple  products 
of  the  farm  and  plantation,  upon  which  we 
depend  to  maintain  the  balance  of  trade  in 
our  favor,  become  so  low  in  price  that  the 
producers  of  them  received  but  little,  if  any, 
more  than  the  cost  of  production,  then  the 
purchasing  power  of  one  half  of  the  popula- 
tion is  destroyed,  or  reduced  to  the  barest 
necessities.     This  condition   at  once  makes 


84  Wage  Earners. 

itself  felt  in  every  other  productive  industry 
in  the  nation.  The  merchant  cannot  sell 
goods,  consequently  he  cannot  buy  of  the 
manufacturer;  and  the  manufacturer  is  com- 
pelled to  reduce  his  working  force,  reduce 
wages,  or  to  close  entirely. 

In  this  connection  do  not  forget  that  un- 
less the  producers  of  food  and  fiber  receive 
remunerative  prices  for  their  great  staples, 
no  other  industry  can  hope  to  prosper. 

Prices  cannot  be  maintained  unless  there 
shall  be  an  increasing  volume  of  money  com- 
mensurate with  the  increasing  volume  of 
business.  Currency,  bank  checks,  and  credit 
devices,  may  to  a  certain  extent  be  used  as 
substitutes  for  money ;  but  as  every  credit 
device  rests  upon  the  assumption  that  it  is 
good  for  money  on  demand,  it  were  infinitely 
wiser  to  increase  the  volume  of  money.  In 
this  connection,  the  following  from  David 
Hume,  the  Scotch  historian,  is  to  the  point: 

"It  is  certain  that  since  the  discovery  of 
the  mines  in  America  industry  has  increased 
in  all  the  nations  of  Europe.  *  *  *  We  find 
that  in  every  kingdom  into  which  money  be- 
gins to  flow  in  greater  abundance  than  for- 
merly everything  takes  a  new  face  ;  labor 
and  industry  gain  life;  the  merchant  becomes 


Wage  Earners.  85 

more  enterprising,  the  manufacturer  more' 
diligent  and  skillful,  and  even  the  farmer  fol- 
lows his  plow  with  greater  alacrity  and  atten- 
tion. *  *  *  The  good  policy  of  the  magis- 
trate consists  only  in  keeping  it,  if  possible, 
still  increasing,  because  by  that  means  he 
keeps  alive  a  spirit  of  industry  in  the  nation 
and  increases  the  stock  of  labor,  in  which 
consists  all  real  power  and  riches.  A  nation 
whose  money  decreases  is  actually  at  that 
time  weaker  and  more  miserable  than  an- 
other nation  which  possesses  no  more  money 
but  is  on  the  increasing  hand." 

The  experience  of  the  world  has  proven 
the  correctness  of  this  analysis  of  the  effect 
of  a  constantly  increasing  volume  of  metallic 
money  upon  the  welfare  of  the  people. 

Mr.  Moreton   Frewen,  in  an   address  at 
Melbourne,  Australia,  on  the  5th  of  Febru 
ary,   1895,  refers  to  the  Silver  Age    of  the 
world  in  the  following  historic  facts  : 

"A  century  after  the  Spaniards  reached 
America  the  great  silver  mines  of  Potosi,  in 
Bolivia,  were  discovered,  and  all  the  mints 
of  Europe  being  open  to  the  free  coinage  of 
silver,  this  metal  began  to  pour  into  Europe 
in  the  hold  of  every  Spanish  galleon.  The 
result  was  that  during  the  first  half  of  the 


86  Wage  Earners. 

17th  century,  Europe  experienced  all  the 
blessings  of  abundant  money.  Human  in- 
dustry and  enterprise  were  everywhere  stim- 
ulated by  prices  perpetually  rising  ;  the  price 
of.  wheat  rose  in  40  years  from  is.  per  bushel 
to  4s.,  wages  from  2s.  6d.  a  week  to  12s.  6d., 
English  land  from  £5  per  acre  to  £25  ;  all 
prices  rose  correspondingly  ;  nor  were  the 
consequences  of  this  great  renaissance  at  all 
confined  to  Europe.  Professor  Cairnes  says 
of  the  great  flow  of  silver  from  Potosi,  'it  ren- 
dered possible  the  remarkable  expansion  of 
Oriental  trade,  which  forms  the  most  striking 
commercial  fact  of  the  age  that  followed.' 
Such  was  the  effect  of  the  flow  of  the  new 
money  from  America." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  while  wheat  and 
land  increased  400  per  cent,  in  price  in  40 
years,  wages  of  working  men  at  the  same 
time  increased  slightly  more  than  525  per 
cent.  It  should  also  be  remembered  that  this 
immense  increase  of  general  prices  resulted 
from  the  great  volume  of  silver  contributed 
from  the  mines  of  the  New  World  to  the 
money  volume  of  the  old. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  GOLD  RESERVE.     $100,000,000.      HOW  IT 
WAS  ESTABLISHED  AND  WHAT  IT  COST. 

The  act  of  Congress  of  January  14th, 
1875,  which  provided  for  the  resumption  of 
specie  payment  on  January  1st,  1879,  enacted 
as  follows:  "And  to  enable  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  to  prepare  and  provide  for  the 
redemption  in  this  act  authorized  and  re- 
quired, he  is  authorized  to  use  any  surplus 
revenues,  from  time  to  time,  in  the  Treasury 
not  otherwise  appropriated,  and  to  issue, 
sell  and  dispose  of,  at  not  less  than  par,  in 
coin,  either  of  the  descriptions  of  bonds  of 
the  United  States,  described  in  the  act  of 
Congress,  approved  July  fourteenth,  eigh- 
teen hundred  and  seventy,  entitled  *  *  * 
With  like  qualities,  privileges,  and  exemp- 
tions, to  the  extent  necessary  to  carry  this 
act  into  full  effect,  and  to  use  the  proceeds 
there  for  the  purposes  aforesaid." 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  act  does  not 
contemplate  a  reserve  of  one  hundred  mil- 
lions, nor  a  reserve  of  any  amount,  or  for 
any  purpose. 

The  Secretary  is  authorized  to  issue,  sell 


88  Gold  Reserve. 

and  dispose  of  bonds,  for  coin,  and  to  use  the 
proceeds  of  such  sale  (coin),  "in  the  redemp- 
tion in  com,  of  the  United  States  legal  tender 
notes  then  outstanding"  There  is  not  in 
any  act  of  Congress  specific  authority,  to 
either  establish,  or  to  maintain  a  reserve 
fund  for  the  redemption  of  United  States 
legal  tender  notes.  Resumption  of  coin  re- 
demption was  to  take  effect  on  January  ist, 
1879,  and  the  following  statement  shows  the 

ORIGIN  OF  THE    IOO  MILLION  GOLD  RESERVE. 

In  a  speech  at  Toledo,  Ohio,  August  26th, 
1878,  Mr.  Sherman,  then  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  said  : 

"My  predecessors  had  taken  no  steps 
under  the  provisions  of  the  resumption  act. 
When  I  assumed  the  duties  of  my  present 
office,  after  careful  study  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion, I  determined  that  it  would  be  necessary 
to  accumulate,  in  addition  to  the  surplus 
revenue,  the  sum  of  $100,000,000  of  gold 
coin,  and  it  ought  to  be  accumulated  at  the 
rate  of  $500,000  a  month  from  the  first  of 
May,  1877,  to  the  date  of  resumption.  We 
accumulated  readily  during  eight  months  of 
that  year  at  the  rate  of  $500,000  a  month. 

"This  process  was  arrested  by  the  debates 
in  Congress;  but  was  again  resumed  in  the 


Gold  Reserve.  89 

spring  of  this  year  (1878) ,  when  it  was  found 
still  more  easy  to  accumulate  coin  by  the  sale 
of  \%  per  cent,  bonds,  and  the  original  plan 
was  executed  sooner  than  was  anticipated. 
On  the  10th  of  this  month  (August,  1878) ,  the 
Treasury  of  the  United  States  was  supplied 
with  $209,01 1,753  m  gold  and  silver — in  coin 
and  bullion."1 

Four  facts  are  clearly  established  by  this 
statement  : 

First,  That  the  Secretary  determined  that 
it  would  be  necessary  to  accumulate  100  mil- 
lions of  gold  coin. 

Second,  That  such  determination  was 
clearly  his  determination — not  the  conditions 
imposed  by  the  law. 

Third,  That  the  Secretary  at  that  time 
considered  silver  as  well  as  gold  available 
for  redemption  purposes. 

Fourth,  That  the  Secretary  does  not  indi- 
cate or  suggest  either  the  establishment  or 
the  maintainance  of  a  permanent  coin  re- 
serve. 

Secretary  Sherman  has  since  claimed  that 
subsequent  to  the  passage  of  the  Resump- 
tion Act,  Congress  had,  by  law,  authorized 

1  The  Silver  Question,  Weston,  page  65. 


go  Gold  Reset  ve. 

the  maintainance  of  the  ioo  million  reserve, 
but  has  never  been  able  to  give  the  date  of 
the  act  or  where  it  can  be  found.    • 

The  claim  that  such  authority  exists  can- 
not be  proven.  The  only  reference  to  a  gold 
reserve  will  be  found  in  the  act  of  July  12th, 
1882  :  "An  act  to  enable  national  banking 
associations  to  extend  their  corporate  exis- 
tence, and  for  other  purposes." 

This  is,  as  its  title  implies,  an  act  in  favor 
of  the  banks,  and  it  is  at  the  close  of  the  1 2th 
section  that  the  attempt  to  establish  a  re- 
serve by  stealth  crops  out  in  the  words,  "Pro- 
vided, That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
shall  suspend  the  issue  of  gold  certificates 
whenever  the  amount  of  gold  coin  and  bul- 
lion in  the  Treasury,  reserved  for  the  re- 
demption of  United  States  notes,  falls  below 
one  hundred  million  dollars." 

It  was  doubtless  the  intent  of  the  pro- 
motersofthisact,  to,  under  the  proviso  clause, 
provide  such  a  form  of  words  as  might  serve 
as  an  excuse  for  the  Secretary's  assumption 
of  legislative,  judicial  and  executive  power. 
Nowhere  is  there  a  legislative  shall,  or  a 
legislative  may,  provided  by  Congress  in  rela- 
tion to  the  duties  or  the  powers  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  to  either  establish  a  re- 


Gold  Reserve.  91 

serve  or  to  maintain  one  for  the  redemption 
of  the  greenbacks.  When  the  people  of  the 
United  States  by  law  establish  a  reserve,  Con- 
gress will  in  due  form  prescribe  what  is  to  be 
done,  the  methods  and  who  is  to  do  it.  It  will 
not  be  left  to  inference  or  implication.1 

Mr.  Sherman  has  told  how  the  reserve 
was  established.  He  has  not  told  what  it 
has  cost  the  taxpayers. 

It  may  be  difficult  to  determine  accurate- 
ly just  what  amount  of  different  rates  of  in- 
terest bonds  were  issued  by  the  Secretary  to 
accumulate  the  one  hundred  millions  gold 
coin  and  bullion.  It  is  generally  understood 
that  they  are  all  5  per  cent,  annual  interest, 
or  five  million  dollars  interest  each  year. 
Counting  the  time  from  January  1st,  1879,  to 
December  1st,  1S95,  is  17  years.  Now  mul- 
tiply $5,000,000  by  17  and  the  result  is  85 
million  dollars2  paid  in  interest  alone  upon  a 
reserve  which  has  no  warrant  in  law  for  its 


1  Since  the  foregoing  was  written  and  while  going 
through  the  press,  Secretary  Carlisle,  in  response  to  a  reso- 
lution of  inquiry  passed  by  the  Senate,  says  officially,  that 
there  is  not  now,  and  never  has  been  set  apart  in  the  treasury, 
a  fund  of  $100,000,000  in  gold,  there  being  no  provision  of 
law  authorising  it. — ("Congressional  Record,"  January  13th, 
1896.) 

2  If  the  interest  is  4^  per  cent.,  the  total  interest  will  be 
$76,500,000. 


92  Gold  Reserve. 

existence,  which  has  no  monetary  necessity, 
use  or  benefit,  other  than  to  rob  the  taxpayer 
for  the  benefit  of  the  scheming  pirates  who 
attempted  to  sneak  a  Treasury  reserve  into 
a  National  Bankers'  Act. 

The  theory  that  the  government  could 
not  support  346  million  non-interest  bearing 
legal  tender  paper,  and  that  there  must  be 
maintained  at  a  cost  of  five  million  dollars 
a  year  a  gold  reserve,  in  order  to  protect  the 
credit  of  the  government.1  While  at  the 
same  time  the  government  supports  the 
issue  of  1,000  million  in  interest  bearing 
bonds  without  a  reserve  could  emanate  only 
from  those  whose  methods  are  past  finding 
out,  and  who  desire  to  share  in  gains  that 
stink  with  fraud. 

It  will  be  observed  that  an  interest  bear- 
ing debt  is  all  right,  the  proper  thing,  very 
desirable,  while  a  non-interest  bearing  debt 
is  all  wrong  and  must  be  gotten  rid  of  at  the 
earliest  moment,  and  if  that  can't  be  done, 
why  just  put  out  more  interest  bearing  bonds 
to  protect  the  credit  of  the  nation. 

Interest   has  a  sweetly  solemn  sound  to 

1  "It  is  not  the  credit,  but  the  power  of  the  government 
that  is  behind  it  in  the  law  of  legal  tender,  and  in  the  right 
to  increase  or  diminish  the  issue." — Senator  John  P.  Jones' 
Nevada  speech,  Oct.  14-30,  1S93,  page  194. 


-    Gold  Reserve.  93 

the  ears  of  syndicates — tax  eaters  and  an- 
nuitants. Jefferson  said  "a  national  debt 
is  a  national  curse."  Let  all  the  people  say, 
Amen. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  CLEVELAND  BOND  ISSUES. 

SpconT^lriOnOo'ooo  '"   5  per  cent-  10  years'  annual  interest. . ..  $5,000,000 
Third — $62i815',000      4  per  cent.,  30  years,  annual  interest. . .  .$2,492,008 


Total  Annual  Interest $7,492,600 

To  be  paid  by  the  productive  industries  of  the  country,  because  of  a 
theory  of  the  administration  which  has  no  warrant  in  law.  no  public 
necessity,  and  which  is  not  demanded  by  national  liouer.  But  the  end 
is  not  yet.    More  bonds  to  borrow  more  gold. 

The  methods  attending  the  last  issue  of 
bonds  No.  3  as  given  above,  are  fully  set  out 
in  the  reply  to  Mr.  Carlisle's  excuse  that  the 
banks  had  the  government  at  their  mercy. 

It  is  now  proposed  to  show  to  the  tax- 
payers, the  producers  of  wealth,  what  it  costs 
them  to  tamely  submit  to  such  monstrous 
perversion  of  law  and  usurpation  of  legisla- 
tive functions  by  the  Executive. 

Suppose  that  this  unlawful  burden  of  debt 
shall  be  paid  by  the  wheat  growers  of  the 
nation.  The  tax  costs  them,  if  their  wheat 
nets  them  50  cents  a  bushel  on  the  farm,  no 
less  than  fourteen  million  nine  hundred 
eighty-five  thousand  two  hundred  bushels  ; 
to  produce  which  they  must  devote  the  use 
of  1,152,700  acres  of  land.1  They  must  also 
contribute  2,017,225  bushels  of  seed  wheat.1 


1  Average  crop  13  bushels  per  acre. 

2  \%  bushels  seed  per  acre. 


Cleveland  Bond  Issues.  95 

They  must  also  contribute  the  labor  of  28,- 
817  men,  and  must  furnish  57,634  horses1  or 
their  equivalent,  in  order  to  prepare  the 
ground,  plant,  harvest  and  market  the  crop. 
If  this  were  the  end  of  the  imposition  upon 
the  wheat  grower,  the  burden  would  be  in- 
tolerable, but  there  is  a  further  burden  to  be 
borne.  He  must  pay  the  taxes  {for  taxes  are 
never  omitted)  upon  the  1,152,700  acres  of 
land  and  upon  the  farm  buildings,  fences, 
improvements,  tools  and  machinery,  and  the 
assessor  will  not  omit  from  his  list  a  single 
one  of  the  57,634  horses,  nor  the  wagons  and 
harnesses  used  in  producing  the  crop.  He 
must  also  make  good  the  loss  by  death  of 
not  less  than  10  per  cent,  per  annum,  or 
5763  horses.  He  must  furnish  subsistence  for 
the  28,817  men  and  forage  for  the  57,634 
horses.  He  must  pay  the  smithing  bill,  no 
small  item,  and  he  must  pay  all  the  incidental 
expenses  attending  upon  the  operation  of 
the  farm. 

Shift  the  burden  upon  the  cotton  grower 
and  the  result  will  be  about  as  follows:  With 
cotton  at  5  cts.  a  pound  on  the  plantation,  the 
annual  tax  will  be  149,852,000  pounds,  or 
374,630  bales  of  400  pounds  each.     Surely  it 

1  40  acres  to  one  man  and  three  horses. 


96  Cleveland  Bond  Issues. 

should  be  some  supreme  necessity. which  could 
justify,  or  excuse  the  executive  department, 
in  the  exercise  of  such  arbitrary  and  des- 
potic power,  as  the  creation  of  an  addition 
to  an  already  destructive  burden  of  debt 
and  usury  ! 

What  was  that  necessity? 

The  nation  was  at  peace  at  home  and 
with  all  the  world.  The  public  health  was 
not  imperilled.  No  scourge  of  famine.  No 
pestilence.  No  extraordinary  dispensation 
of  providence  unfavorable  to  the  general 
welfare.  No  great  national  improvement 
of  land  or  water  ways.  No  gigantic  irrigat 
ing  system  to  reclaim  the  arid  lands  and 
make  them  fruitful.  No  system  of  employ- 
ment for  the  millions  of  the  unemployed. 
Not  all  or  any  one  of  these  existed  or  was 
even  contemplated. 

What  then  was  the  necessity? 

The  administration  has  a  theory,  a  pur- 
pose, to  place  the  United  States  upon  the 
gold  standard  for  money.  Failing  to  secure 
the  necessary  legislation  by  Congress  to 
carry  out  that  theory  and  purpose,  it  is  in- 
tended to,  by  construction  by  the  depart- 
ment, and  by  discrimination  against  silver 
money,  and  by  such  discrimination,  and  by 


Cleveland  Bond  Issues.  97 

the  surrender  of  the  rights  of  the  govern- 
ment, to  pay  in  silver,  as  by  law  provided; 
to  established  a  custom,  or  usage  of  the 
treasury  department,  which  can  be  offered 
as  an  excuse  by  the  Secretary,  in  absence  of 
positive  law. 

There  is  in  the  treasury  a  reserve  of  100 
millions  in  gold,1  and  to  maintain  this  re- 
serve is  made  the  excuse  for  these  three  is- 
sues of  bonds  known  on  the  street  as  "Grov- 
ers."  It  is  claimed  that  the  honor,  dignity, 
and  glory  of  the  nation  rests  upon  this  gold 
reserve,  to  maintain  which  these  three 
issues  of  bonds  have  been  made.  The  last 
issue,  No.  3,  was  done  in  the  dark — secretly 
— silently,  as  the  thief  or  burglar  does  his 
nefarious  work.2 

The  excuse  given  for  the  issuing  of  these 
several  installments  of  bonds;  the  secrecy 
attending  the  last  issue  ;  the  admissions 
and  excuses  offered  by  Mr.  Carlisle,  when 
before  the  House  Committee  of   Ways  and 


i  See  The  Gold  Reserve,  page  87. 

2  The  realizable  profits  in  money  to  the  bond  syndicate 
in  this  dlegal  transaction  and  in  clear  money,  was  greater 
than  the  combined  profits  of  all  the  farms  in  the  four  great 
states  of  Illinois,  Iowa,  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  Not  more 
than  was  produced,  but  more  profit  than  they  were  en- 
abled to  realize  for  the  labor  expended  during  the  years 
1873-4-5- 


q8  Cleveland  Bond  Issues. 

Means,1  all  point  to  a  conspiracy  having  for 
its  object  public  plunder  for  private  gain. 
Whatever  the  secret  purpose  may  have  been, 
not  one  of  these  three  issues  of  United 
States  bonds  is  free  from  the  taint  of  fraud, 
and  have  no  moral  force  of  law  in  their 
favor. 

The  Matthews  Resolution2  stands  unre- 
pealed, and  unimpeached  ;  it  is  not  manda- 
tory in  its  terms,  but  it  speaks  as  DECLAR- 
ATORY of  the  will  of  the  people,  and  as 
such  declaration  it  is  superior  and  supreme 
over  the  opinion  of  any  executive  officer.  It 
is  the  will  of  the  Sovereign,  in  whom  rests 
all  authority  and  all  power,  and  is  declara- 
tory of  that  will,  which  cannot  be  annulled 
by  any  servant  of  the  sovereign  power. 

That  power  which  proclaimed  the  Ma- 
thews resolution  is  the  only  power  which  can 
repeal  it. 

Of  the  present  members  of  Mr.  Cleve- 
land's cabinet,  Mr.  Carlisle  and  Mr.  Her- 
bert voted  aye  on  this  resolution,  and  can- 
not claim  to  be  ignorant  of  that  fact.  The 
record  is  conclusive  ! 


1  See  Carlisle's  Confession  of  Imbecility. 

2  Appendix. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

GOLD    CONTRACTS   NULLIFICATION. 

"What  things  soever  the  law  saith,  it  saith  to  them  who  are  under 
the  law."— Rom.  3 :  19. 

The  government  of  the  United  States  is 
in  form  a  Democratic  Republic,  which,  em- 
anating from  the  people,  recognizes  that  in 
their  political  capacity  the  people  are  the 
sovereign,  and  that  in  them  lies  "the  origin  of 
all  power,  the  ultimate  source  of  all  author- 
lty. 

This  original  authority  has  been  delegat- 
ed to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
which,  when  acting  within  the  sphere  of  its 
agency,  represents  the  power,  the  majesty, 
the  omnipotence,  of  the  sovereign  will  of 
the  nation. 

This  sovereign  will  expressed  through 
constitutional  enactment,  reaches  to  the  fur- 
thermost borders  of  the  earth.  It  says  to  the 
monarchies,  to  the  governments  of  the  world, 
that  the  person  and  the  property  of  the  Amer- 
ican citizen  is  sacred  and  must  be  protected. 
On  sea  and  on  land,  the  will  of  the  people, 
when  properly  expressed  through  Congress, 
is  supreme.     Within  the  territorial  area  of 


ioo  Gold  Contracts  Nullification. 

the  United  States  it  reaches  every  industry, 
every  working  man,  through  the  taxing 
power,  taking  of  his  industry  to  pay  public 
charges  ;  and  in  case  of  great  public  neces- 
sity it  invades  the  home  and  takes  the  bread 
winner,  placing  him  in  the  front  ranks  on 
the  battle  field,  there  to  protect  the  honor, 
the  dignity,  and  the  glory  of  the  nation's 
power. 

The  Constitution  is  the  supreme  law  of 
the  land.  Congressional  enactments  within 
the  authority  of  the  Constitution,  are  also 
supreme,  to  which  all  good  men  bow  in  loy- 
al acknowledgment  and  respect,  and  observe 
with  the  faith  and  honor  of  good  and  law 
abiding  citizens. 

From  its  earliest  history  the  Congress  has, 
in  aid  of  constitutional  right,  enacted  that 
certain  coins  and  certain  paper  currency 
should  constitute  the  legal  tender  money  of 
the  people,  and,  in  at  least,  three  important 
cases,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  have  held  that  such  legislation  was 
within  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress 
to  enact. 

Time  was  when  the  attempt  to  nullify  an 
act  of  Congress  was  looked  upon  as  little 
short  of  treason,  and  was  to  be  put  down  by 


Gold  Contracts  Nullification.  101 

the  strong  hand,  and  stamped  out  as  too  vile 
and  dangerous  a  thing  to  be  permitted  to 
show  its  hideous  purpose. 

But  in  these  later  days  of  "splendid  plat- 
itudes," of  broken  promises,  and  secret  con- 
tracts, when  greed  and  avarice  riot  in  com- 
mand of  executive  and  administrative  pre- 
rogative ;  when  laws  upon  the  statutes  of  the 
nation,  sanctified  by  a  century  of  uniform 
usage  and  judicial  construction,  are  dispensed 
with  as  of  non  effect ;  when  officials  solemnly 
sworn  to  uphold  and  support  the  laws,  pal- 
ter and  bargain,  when  they  should  boldly 
and  vigorously  enforce  ;  who,  instead  of 
standing  unmoved,  unawed,  as  a  bulwark 
against  the  assaults  of  the  "traitorous  class- 
es," have  tamely  surrendered  to  those  who, 
failing  in  their  efforts  to  secure  the  enact- 
ment by  Congress  of  such  legislation  as  would 
(so  far  as  Congressional  authority  goes) 
place  the  vast  productive  energies  of  the 
nation  upon  the  gold  basis,  and  as  a  part  of 
the  general  plan  of  forcing  the  gold  standard 
upon  the  people,  the  banks,  syndicates,  agen- 
cies and  promoters  unite  in  demanding  that 
all  notes,  bonds,  and  obligations  of  debt 
shall  be  written  specifically  payable,  princi- 
pal and  interest,  in  gold  coin. 


102  Gold  Contracts  Nullification. 

All  such  notes,  bonds  and  other  obliga- 
tions of  debt  are  nullification  of  the  legal 
tender  acts  of  Congress,  and  are  payable  in 
any  of  the  legal  tender  money  of  the  coun- 
try. The  only  exception  to  this  rule  may 
be  in  the  standard  silver  dollar,  coined  un- 
der the  provisions  of  the  act  of  February 
28th,  1878,  known  as  the  Bland-Allison  act. 
It  may  fairly  be  questioned  whether  the  ex- 
ception clause  in  that  act  could  operate  to 
deprive  constitutional  money,  with  constitu- 
tional legal  tender  from  performing  its  con- 
stitutional function. 

Mr.  Justice  Clifford,  in  the  legal  tender 
cases,  says:  "Very  strong  doubts  are  enter- 
tained whether  an  act  of  Congress  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  constitute  the  gold  and 
silver  coins  of  the  United  States,  fabricated 
and  stamped  as  such  by  the  proper  execu- 
tive officers  of  the  mint,  a  legal  tender  in 
payment  of  debts.  Constituted,  as  such  coins 
arc  by  the  Constitution,  the  standard  of  value, 
the  better  opinion  would  seem  to  be  that 
they  become  legal  tender  for  that  purpose,  if 
minted  of  the  required weight  and  fineness." 

In  the  same  cases  Mr.  Justice  Field  says: 
"Money  being  a  standard,  its  coins  or  pieces 
are  necessarily  a  legal  tender.     The  provis- 


Gold  Contracts  Nullification.  103 

ions  in  the  different  coinage  acts,  that  the 
coins  to  be  struck  shall  be  such  legal  tender, 
are  merely  declaratory  of  their  effect  when 
offered  in  payment,  and  are  not  necessary  to 
give  them  that  effect." 

Without  attempting  exhaustive  analysis 
of  the  exception  clause  in  the  Bland-Allison 
act,  it  is  entirely  safe  to  say  that  every  citi- 
zen is  entitled  to  pay  his  private  debts  in 
any  of  the  legal  tender  money  of  the  United 
States,  a  gold  contract  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. 

There  are  certain  contracts  which  citizens 
are  not  permitted  to  enter  into,  and  which 
the  courts  uniformly  hold  invalid.  A  man 
may  not  contract  to  commit  a  crime.  A 
man  may  not  contract  to  violate  the  law. 
A  man  may  not  contract  in  violation  of  pub- 
lic policy.  These  gold  contracts  are  obnoxi- 
ous, as  coming  within  all  of  these  forbidden 
classes  of  contracts. 

When  South  Carolina  threatened  to  nul- 
lify an  act  of  Congress  in  relation  to  the 
revenue,  the  then  President  of  the  United 
States  proposed  to  use  not  only  the  judicial, 
but  the  military  power  of  the  nation  to  up- 
hold and  enforce,  and  to  punish  the  violat- 
ors of  an  act  of  Congress,  in  relation  to  rev- 


104  Gold  Contracts  Nullification. 

enue.  In  what  respect  is  an  act  of  Con- 
gress in  relation  to  revenue,  and  which  di- 
rectly  affects  so  few  in  its  operation,  more 
sacred  than  an  act  of  Congress  in  respect 
to  legal  tender,  which  may  affect  every 
monetary  transaction  in  the  length  and 
breath  of  the  land?  and,  if  one  act  of  Con- 
gress may  be  nullified  by  private  contract, 
why  may  not  any  other  act  which  interferes 
with  the  avarice,  the  ambition,  or  the  trea- 
son of  individuals?1  One  encroachment 
leads  to  another  ;  one  precedent  leads  to 
further  assaults  ;  all  respect  for  law  is  ban- 
ished ;  government  becomes  the  tool  of 
chicane  and  outrage,  and  justice  is  cruci- 
fied by  the  officers  who  have  solemnly  sworn 
to  support  and  impartially  execute  the  laws. 
The  worst  possible  lesson  to  teach,  either 
by  precept  or  example,  is  avoidance  of  law; 
especially  is  this  true  of  those  who  by  offi- 
cial authority — by  wealth,  intelligence  or 
opportunity — are  in  position  where  their 
example  or  opinions  may  influence  those 
who,  with  less  opportunity  to  know  the  bale- 
ful effects  upon   public  and  private  morals, 

1  The  New  York  "Tribune"  of  Nov.  13th,  1878,  said  ex- 
ultingly  that,  " practically  the  banks  of  the  city  of  New  York 
repeal  the  silver  bill,"  referring  to  the  act  of  Feb.  28th,  1878. 
— The  Silver  Question   Weston,  page  12. 


Gold  Contracts  Nullification.  105 

which  always  follow  the  dispensing  with 
statutes  or  the  forced  and  unwarranted  con- 
struction of  them. 

In  1643  the  English  people  beheaded 
Charles  the  1st,  on  Tower  Hill,  because  he 
had  dispensed  with  acts  of  parliament — 
construed  the  laws  in  favor  of  the  Crown, 
and  appointed  corrupt  and  servile  judges. 
The  beheading  of  Charles  was  clear  and  un- 
mistakable evidence  that  the  English  peo- 
ple were  fully  alive  to  there  rights  under  the 
great  charter,  and  were  determined  to  pro- 
tect those  rights  at  the  cost  of  the  life  of  the 
vialators  of  them,  even  though  done  by  one 
anointed  with  the  sacred  oil,  and  panoplied 
with  the  divine  right  of  the  King  ;  and  so 
salutary  was  this  lesson,  that  for  250  years 
no  King,  Queen  or  Empress  of  England  and 
India,  has  ventured  to  dispense  with  statutes 
or  to  construe  acts  of  parliament  in  favor 
of  the  Crown,  nor  to  attempt  to  dictate  to 
parliment  as  to  the  legislation  which  it 
should  or  should  not  enact. 

In  the  United  States  the  will  of  the  peo- 
ple is  the  voice  of  God.  When  the  people 
speak,  the  world  listen  and  monarchies  trem- 
ble. But  this  voice  must  be  the  speech  of 
men: 


106  Gold  Contracts  Nullification. 

"Men,  who  their  duties  know, 

But  know  their  rights, 

And  knowing  dare  maintain." 

When  this  voice  speaks,  all  the  blight  and 
curse  of  arbitrary  power — the  dispensing 
with  acts  of  Congress,  the  forced  and  un- 
usual construction  of  laws  in  support  of  an 
administrative  theory,  the  repealing  of  laws 
by  corporations  or  by  individuals,  the  treach- 
erous demagogue,  scheming  for  plunder,  and 
all  the  hydraheaded  evils  forced  upon  the  re- 
public by  tyrannous  methods — will  sink  into 
the  limbo  of  uncreated  things,  to  be  remem- 
bered only  to  be  cursed, 

"And  sovereign  law,  that  states  collected  will 

O'er  thrones  and  globes  elate, 
Sits  empress,  crowning  good,  repressing  ill." 

If  present  practices  are  permitted  to  pre- 
vail, popular  government  will  have  ceased; 
the  people  will  have  surrendered  control  over 
the  creation,  the  interpretation,  and  enforce- 
ment of  laws,  to  those  who,  by  the  corrup- 
tion of  party  and  the  despotism  of  wealth, 
have  placed  themselves  in  the  position  of 
autocrats  and  dictators  of  national  policy. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Carlisle's  confession  of  imbecility. 

The  bankers  practically  had  the  government  at  their  mercy,  and 
he  was  obliged  to  accept  the  best  terms  that  could  be  made  with 
them  ! !  !* 

"How  couldst  thou  ween  through  that  disguising  hood 
To  hide  thy  state  from  being  understood." — Spencer. 

"The  lady  doth  protest  too  much  methinks."— Shakespeare. 

Here  is  an  explanation  that  does  not  ex- 
plain. The  Secretary  asserts,  but  he  does 
not  tell  either  the  committee  or  the  public  by 
what  methods  the  bankers  had  acquired  such 
power  as  to  have  "the  government  at  their 
mercy."  He  does  not  tell  by  what  sins  of 
omission  or  commission  he  had  surrendered 
the  control  of  the  financial  department  of 
the  government  to  an  unscrupulous  syndi- 
cate, to  be  manipulated  in  the  interest  of  for- 
eign and  domestic  peculators  upon  the  pub- 
lic debt.  Perhaps  the  reasons  may  have  been 
too  humiliating  to  tell,  and  if  not  treason- 
able, at  least  not  free  from  the  taint  of  con- 
spiracy, and  the  grave  suspicion  of  a  corrupt 
sharing  in  the  profits  of  the  cowardly  sur- 


*  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  John  G.  Carlisle,  before 
House  Committee  Ways  and  Means,  Feb.  12th,  1895.  In 
relation  to  secret  contract  for  issue  of  62,315,000  30  year  4 
per  cent.  U.  S.  bonds. 


io8  Carlisle's  Confession  of  Imbecility. 

render  of  official  duty  into  the  hands  of  pro- 
fessional experts  in  financial  chicane. 

What  a  spectacle  !  Here  is  a  great  na- 
tion, a  nation  of  nearly  seventy  million  peo- 
ple ;  great  in  all  natural  resources  ;  great  in 
its  ability  to  meet  and  overcome  obstacles  ; 
great  in  the  patriotic  devotion  of  its  people  ; 
great  in  its  national  pride  ;  great  in  its  sense 
of  national  honor  ;  great  in  its  sense  of  public 
duty.  And  this  people  are  insulted,  out- 
raged and  humiliated  by  their  Financial 
Secretary  who,  in  a  spirit  of  abject  cowardice 
or  worse,  without  a  word  of  warning,  with- 
out notice  to  the  people,  enters  into  a  secret 
contract  by  which  a  syndicate  undertakes  to 
perform  those  duties  which  properly  belong 
to  his  department. 

Never  in  the  nation's  history,  not  in  the 
darkest  and  most  trying  ordeal  of  the  great 
rebellion  (of  which  Mr.  Carlisle  was  a  part), 
has  any  official  so  far  prostituted  his  office, 
or  surrendered  to  others  the  duties  of  his 
office,  as  has  Mr.  Carlisle. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  President  Lincoln  and 
Secretary  Chase  permitting,  in  those  days  of 
supreme  necessity,  an  alien  and  treacherous 
power  to  obtain  control  and  to  hold  the  gov- 
ernment at  its  mercy — a  power  which  exists 


Carlisle  s  Confession  of  Imbecility.  1 09 

only  by  government  recognition  ;  a  power 
"without  a  body  to  be  kicked,  or  a  soul  to  be 
damned;"  holding  this  government  at  its 
mercy  ! !  Mr.  Carlisle,  ye  certainly  do  pro- 
test too  much  ! 

If  we  go  back  to  April  27th,  1893,  it  may 
be  quite  possible  to  ascertain  how,  and  by 
what  methods,  the  bankers  acquired  such 
control  over  Mr.  Carlisle  as  to  be  able  to 
force  from  him  the  disgraceful  confession 
made  to  the  committee.1 

In  this  conspiracy  so  clearly  proven  by 
Mr.  Shuckers,  a  conspiracy  having  for  its 
object  the  destruction  of  values,  and  conse- 
quent financial  ruin  of  millions  of  small  trad- 
ers, as  well  as  the  distress  and  poverty  of  the 
industrial  classes,  a  conspiracy  to  which  Mr. 
Carlisle,  representing  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  was  an  accredited  party. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  completely 
Mr.  Carlisle  and  Mr.  Cleveland  were  at  the 
mercy  of  those  bankers  who  were  a  party  to 
that  conspiracy.  It  is  not  easy  to  under- 
stand how  the  government  became  a  party  to 
that  transaction  to  the  extent,  that  to  prevent 
exposure  of  the  methods  by  which  the  panic 

1  See  extracts  from  Mr.  Shucker's  4th  letter,  appendix. 


I  io  Carlisle's  Confession  of  Imbecility. 

of  1893  was  precipitated  upon  the  country, 
necessitated  the  surrender  of  millions  of  the 
people's  money  to  save  Mr.  Carlisle  and  Mr. 
Cleveland  from  the  just  wrath  of  an  indig- 
nant and  outraged  people. 

At  the  time  that  Mr.  Carlisle,  as  the  figure- 
head for  Grover  Cleveland  et  al,  was  con- 
spiring with  the  Rothschild-Morgan  syndi- 
cate for  the  sale  of  $62,315,000  interest-bear- 
ing bonds,  there  was  in  the  treasury  subject 
to  his  order,  about  76  million  dollars  of  money 
and  currency,  which  would  have  been  gladly 
accepted  by  every  manufacturer,  merchant, 
wage-earner,  farmer  or  transportation  com- 
pany, in  the  United  States,  in  payment  for 
merchandise,  wages,  or  charges  for  services. 
But  this  was  not  good  enough  for  this  sacred 
syndicate  of  foreign  and  domestic  knights 
of  bunco  and  steer  'em  ;  and  Mr.  Carlisle,  as 
he  tells  the  story,  was,  as  the  agent  of  the 
people,  the  convenient  tool  through  whose 
cowardly  surrender  of  his  official  duty  and 
authority,  deliberately  transferred  to  these 
financial  pirates,  more  than  10  millions  of 
sacred  gold,  besides  fastening  upon  the  pro- 
ductive industries  of  the  people  an  annual 
tax  of  two  million  four  hundred  ninety-two 
thousand  six  hundred  dollars,   for  30  years, 


Carlisle's  Confession  of  Imbecility.  1  1 1 

or  beyond  the   life  of  the  present   genera- 
tion.1 

That  Mr.  Carlisle  should  be  impeached 
and  removed  from  the  high  office  which  he 
has  so  conspicuously  dishonored  and  prosti- 
tuted is  beyond  question.  That  he  has  earned 
the  penalty  due  all  traitors  and  conspirators 
is  equally  true.  Will  the  American  people 
protect  themselves,  their  children,  and  their 
children's  children  from  becoming  slaves  to 
usurers  and  extortioners  ? 


1  See  Cleveland  bond  issue. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  YELLOW  MAN  WITH  THE  WHITE  METAL. 

The  industries  of  the  United  States  and 
Europe  under  the  gold  standard  are  being 
destroyed  by  the  premium  offered  to  the 
countries  using  silver  money. 

The  natural  results  which  followed  the 
premium  offered  by  the  low  price  of  silver 
to  those  countries  using  silver  as  their 
legal  tender  money,  have  reached  such  pro- 
portions as  to,  if  not  quite  destroy  the  farm- 
ers and  planters  in  the  United  States,  at 
least  to  so  seriously  impair  their  ability  to 
pay  debts  and  purchase  goods  that  the 
social  and  political  situation,  is  one  of  seri- 
ous and  alarming  proportions. 

India,  China  and  Japan,  with  their  im- 
mense population  of  cheap  laborers,  imita- 
tive to  the  last  degree,  are  gradually,  but 
certainly  strangling  the  industries  of  those 
people  who  confine  their  money  volume  to 
the  use  of  gold  alone. 

In  this  great  fact,  and  its  influence  upon 
the  fall  in  the  rate  of  exchange  with  Asia,  is 
to  be  found  the  key  to  the  unusual  financial 
disturbances  which  have  occurred  since  1873. 


The  Yellow  Man  With  The  White  Metal.     1 13 

The  effect  of  legislation  hostile  to  silver, 
has  merely  raised  the  value  of  gold,  but 
where,  on  the  other  hand,  silver  is  at  home, 
in  Asia,  its  value  to  700  million  Asiatics  is 
as  great  as  ever.  Pray  think  out  this  start- 
ling fact  from  every  standpoint,  and  it  will 
afford  you  the  clue  to  our  present  industrial 
crisis. 

When  we  recall  that  two  royal  commis- 
sions and  all  our  consular  reports  are  unani- 
mous that  the  Indian  rupee  and  the  silver 
currency  of  China  and  Japan  have  suffered 
no  reduction  in  value  ;  that  on  the  contrary, 
while  falling  50  per  cent,  in  gold  value, 
these  currencies  have  rather  risen  in  wage 
paying  and  all  purchasing  power  at  home, 
in  Asia,  it  is  little  wonder  that  each  fresh 
fall  in  the  gold  price  of  silver,  brought  about 
by  anti-silver  legislation,  should  have  been 
followed  by  a  fall  in  the  price  of  such  agri- 
cultural staples  as  wheat  and  cotton.  Take 
the  latest  figures  of  wheat  supplies  from  the 
"Corn  Trade  News"  and  what  do  we  find? 
The  production  by  the  10  chief  wheat  grow- 
ing nations  of  the  world  from  1SS0  to  1887, 
was  [,825,000,000  bushels;  from  1S88  to  1894 
the  average  production  was  1,904,000,000 
bushels.     The  population,  however,   of  the 


i  14      The  Yelloiv  Man  With  The  White  Metal. 

wheat  eating  nations  averaged  for  the  form- 
er period  397,000,000 and  for  the  latter  period 
434,000,000,  so  that  the  per  capita  supply  for 
the  earlier  period  was  4^2  bushels  annually, 
while  for  the  latter  it  was  a  fraction  more 
than  4%  bushels;  here  you  have  a  reduction 
in  supplies,  and  yet  a  fall  of  quite  50  per 
cent,  in  the  price  of  wheat. 

You  will  bear  in  mind  that  as  the  wages 
and  silver  prices  of  the  Indian  and  the 
Chinaman  have  not  risen,  they  are  not  in  a 
position  to  give  any  more  silver  for  what  we 
export  to  them. 

"Since  we  closed  the  mints  of  India  eigh- 
teen months  ago,  and  thereby  induced  the 
immense  fresh  fall  in  the  exchanges  with 
Japan,  we  have  seen  Japan  increase  her  cot- 
ton manufactures  from  350,000  spindles  to 
nearly  700,000.  Is  it  any  wonder  .that  with 
silver  exchanges  steadily  falling  during  20 
years  such  great  debtor  nations  as  the  United 
States  and  Australia  have  found  themselves 
ground  between  the  upper  and  nether  mill- 
stones of  Asiatic  competition  ?  Said  the 
Chinese  manager  of  the  great  Pahang  tin 
mines  recently  :  'The  exchange  value  of  our 
dollar  has  gone  down  from  five  to  the  pound 
to  ten  to  the  pound,  while    meanwhile  our 


The  Yellow  Man  With  The  White  Metal.     1 1 5 

wages  have  not  gone  up;  if  it  can  only  be 
further  reduced  to  20  dollars  to  the  pound, 
all  the  better  for  us;  at  that  rate  our  export 
will  close  every  tin  mine  in  Cornwall,  and 
supply  the  whole  world  with  tin.'1 

"The  unrestricted  competition  of  the 
cheap  labor  of  Asia — labor  which  has  been 
equipped  by  England  with  the  most  perfect 
modern  machinery — this  competition  is  in 
any  case  sufficiently  formidable  to  white 
men  ;  but  to  bonus  their  exports  by  cheap- 
ing  their  money  through  our  legislation — it 
is  little  wonder  that  in  the  United  States  they 
describe  this  infamous  currency  trick  as  'the 
crime  of  1873.'  "2 

Let  the  wheat  grower  in  the  United  States 
carefully  study  the  statement  taken  from  the 
"Corn  Trade  News,"  an  English  authority 
which  has  not  intentionally  stated  the  case 
in  favor  of  the  wheat  grower.     The  facts 


1  Recent  advices  from  Cornwall  are  to  the  effect  that 
probably  the  most  ancient  industry  of  Great  Britain  is  to 
cease — destroyed  by  the  yellow  man  with  the  white  metal. 
Nearly  all  the  tin  mines  are  now  closed,  and  the  great  old 
"Batallock,"  which  for  two  hundred  years  has  been  famous 
in  poetry  and  romance,  is  now  to  close  its  workings.  This 
ancient  mine  is  about  the  last  of  the  Cornwall  tin  mines  ; 
and  we  may  consider  tin  mining  in  Cornwall  as  a  matter  of 
history. 

2  From  an  address  by  Mr.  Morton  Frewen,  at  Mel- 
bourne, South  Australia,  February  5,  1895. 


1 1 6     Ihe  Yellow  Man  With  The  White  Metal. 

given  are  of  such  immense  importance  that 
I  restate  them.     They  are: 

First.  A  decline  in  the  per  capita  supply 
of  wheat  to  be  consumed. 

Second.  A  fall  in  price  per  bushel  of  quite 
fifty  per  cent. 

These  two  facts  effectually  brand  as  false 
the  claim  that  the  low  price  of  wheat  is  due 
to  overproduction  of  wheat. 

They  conclusively  prove  that  the  wheat 
consuming  nations  of  the  earth  were  short 
of  their  average  annual  consumption  by 
about  J2>  niillion  bushels;  while  in  the  teeth 
of  this  deficient  supply  the  average  price  on 
the  total  crop  declined  50  per  cent.  Why? 
The  answer  has  been  fully  given  in  "Silver, 
Wheat  and  Cotton,"  and  'because  we  are 
supplying  the  Orientals  with  silver  at  half 
price,  which  money  has  there  maintained  its 
purchasing  power;  while,  at  the  same  time, 
if  we  wish  to  continue  our  exports  to  two- 
thirds  of  the  human  race,  we  must  either  sell 
our  goods  at  half-price,  or  see  our  manufac- 
tures and  commerce  swept  out  of  existence 
by  the  yellow  man  with  the  white  metal." 

Nor  should  the  wage  earners  in  the  Unit- 
ed States — those  directly  engaged  in  the 
manufacture  of  goods — fail   to   realize   the 


The  Yellow  Man  With  The  White  Metal.     1 1 7 

immense  importance  to  them  involved  in  this 
cheep  rupee. 

Here  are  millions  of  people,  patient,  in- 
dustrious, imitative,  equipped  with  the  best 
machinery  of  American  and  English  manu- 
facture, willing  to  work  from  twelve  to  six- 
teen hours  a  day  for  one  cent  an  hour  to  two 
cents  an  hour  for  skilled  labor. 

How  long  can  the  American  workingman 
expect  to  maintain  a  rate  of  wages  of  25 
cents  an  hour  with  a  working  day  of  eight 
hours  ? 

Think  this  problem  out  in  all  its  bearings 
upon  the  productive  industries  of  this  na- 
tion, and  tell,  if  you  can,  of  any  other  reme- 
dy than  to  restore  silver  to  its  normal  con- 
dition as  a  money  metal,  thereby  doubling 
the  cost  of  silver  to  the  operators  in  Asiatic 
manufactures. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

GREAT  AS  IS  THIS  REPUBLIC  IT  CANT  CREATE 

MONEY. 
(Secretary  John  G.  Carlisle's  Speech  at  Banquet  in  N.  Y.,  1894.) 

"Time  was,  whoa  the  brains  were  out  the  man  would  die  and  there 
an  end."— Shakespeare. 

"Great  as  is  this  Republic  it  can't  create 
money."  This  assertion  shows  such  mental 
incompetency  to  comprehend,  to  appreciate 
the  source  from  which  money  receives  its 
function,  as  well  as  the  power  through  which 
it  is  created,  that  it  were  charitable  to  sup 
pose  that  the  Secretary's  brain  had  reached 
such  a  point  of  obfuscation1  that  he  had  lost 
the  faculty  of  appreciation  of  the  ethics  of 
money. 

"Great  as  is  this  republic  it  can't  create 
money !  !" 

Why  ?  This,  like  all  administrative  ut- 
terance upon  the  question  of  money  and 
finance,  asserts  but  does  not  prove  the  asser- 
tion. The  truth  is  that  the  sovereign  power 
of  the  nation,  the  Republic,  is  the  only  au- 
thority through  which  money  can  be  created. 

1  His  head  like  smoke-jack,  the  funnel  unswept  and  the 
ideas  whirling  round  and  round  about  in  it,  all  obfuscated 
and  darkened  over  with  fuliginous  matter. — Sterne. 


This  Republic  Cant  Make  Money.  1 19 

The  doors  of  the  prison  swing  inward  on 
easy  hinges  to  admit  him  who  ventures  to 
fabricate  anything  in  the  form  or  semblance 
of  money,  unless  he  be  vested  with  national 
authority  to  do  so. 

The  existence  of  the  mint,  the  existence 
of  national  bank  charters,  both  of  which 
come  within  the  department  of  the  Secretary, 
of  the  Treasury,  are  sufficient  proof  that  Mr. 
Carlisle,  in  this  remark,  was  a  long  way  from 
expressing  the  truth  in  relation  to  the  power 
to  create  money. 

The  United  States  Constitution  expressly 
imposes  upon  Congress  the  duty  to  create 
money,  and  as  expressly  forbids  the  creation 
of  it  by  any  other  authority  ;  and  Congress 
has  assumed  and  performed  up  to  1873,  the 
duty  of  creating  money  out  of  the  constitu- 
tional money  metals.  The  Supreme  Court 
has  also  recognized  the  sovereign  power 
vested  in  Congress  to  create  money.  It  has 
also  upheld  all  legislation  by  Congress  in- 
tended to  protect  the  national  coins  from 
impairment  by  counterfeiting,  clipping,  or  in 
any  way  mutilating  the  money  created  by  the 
sovereign  authority. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  Secretary's 
language  is  wanting  in  that  precision  of  state- 


1 20  This  Republic  Cant  Make  Money. 

ment,  in  that  unquestionable  truthfulness 
which  should  characterize  the  public  utter- 
ances of  officials  high  in  authority,  when 
speaking  to  the  people  upon  questions  of 
grave  national  importance,  and  Mr.  Carlisle 
could  not  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the 
national,  the  sovereign  power,  is  the  only 
source  of  authority  by  or  through  which 
money  can  be  created.1 

1  If  the  power  to  declare  what  is  money  is  not  in  Con- 
gress it  is  annihilated.— U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  12  Wal- 
lace, page  514 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

SECRETARY    CARLISLE'S  LATEST    REMEDY  EOR 
EXISTING    FINANCIAL    EMBARRASSMENTS. 

In  an  interview  given  in  the  New  York 
Sun,"  of  December  28th,  1895,  the  Secretary 
s  credited  with  the  following  assertion  : 

"I  am  satisfied  that  there  is  but  one  per- 
nanent  remedy  for  our  financial  embarrass- 
nents  and  that  is  legislation  providing  for 
he  retirement  and  cancellation  of  the  legal 
ender  notes." 

This  dictum  of  Mr.  Carlisle's  is  not  only 
:rroneous  as  to  the  proper  remedy  to  be 
ipplied,  but  it  also  fails  to  realize  the  causes 
vhich  have  produced  "existing  financial 
mibarrassments."  Retirement  and  cancel- 
ation of  the  legal  tender  notes,  issued  by 
he  government,  will  afford  no  remedy  for 
existing  export  of  gold,  nor  for  the  continu- 
ing embarrassments  of  the  productive  in- 
lustries  of  the  country.  Gold  goes  out  to 
>ay  interest  and  debts,  including  imports  of 
roods  purchased  in  Europe.  Exports  of 
Vmerican  products,  while  large  in  volume  or 
[uantity,  are,  owing  to  the  gold  standard,  so 
ow  in  price  that  it  does    not  pay  interest 


1 2  2  Latest  Remedy. 

dividends  and  purchases  of  goods,  and  this 
excess  of  unpaid  balance  becomes  a  sight 
draft  upon  products  of  farm,  factory  and 
gold  mines.  The  result  is,  that  the  United 
States  has  to  pay  in  Europe  more  money, 
gold,  than  the  prices  received  for  all  our 
exports,  hence  export  of  gold;  and  the  retire- 
ment of  the  legal  tender  notes,  will  not  only 
offer  no  remedy,  but  will  intensify  the  de- 
mand for  gold,  resulting  in  a  further  decline 
in  the  gold  prices  of  all  the  products  of 
American  labor  and  the  bankruptcy  of  all 
those  who  are  in  debt. 

For  the  year  from  June  30,  1894,  to  June 
30,  1895,  the  excess  of  merchandise  exports 
over  imports  was  $6 1 ,440,01 5 ;  excess  of  gold 
exports  over  imports,  $30,981,449;  excess  of 
silver  exports  over  imports,  $37,664,797;  to- 
tal excess  for  year,  $130,086,261. 

Notwithstanding  this  large  excess  of  ex- 
ports our  debt  to  Europe  increased  during 
that  year  about  270  million  dollars.  This 
great  deficit  must  be  paid  in  gold,  or  in  the 
products  of  the  farm  and  plantation,  at  prices 
so  much  below  the  prices  of  the  same  pro- 
ducts of  other  countries  as  will  induce  the 
foreign  creditor  to  take  of  us  commodities 
instead  of  gold. 


Latest  Remedy.  123 

To  apply  Mr.  Carlisle's  remedy  under  ex- 
isting conditions  of  debt,  of  general  depres- 
sion, would  be  in  the  highest  degree  crim- 
inal ;  and  the  conspiracy  panic  of  1893  would 
be  forgotten  in  the  cyclone  of  destruction 
which  would  follow  such  contraction  of  the 
currency  volume.1 

The  Secretary's  remedy  for  the  financial 
embarrassments  of  1892-3  was  the  repeal  of 
the  Sherman  silver  purchase  act.  He  then 
claimed  that  that  act  was  responsible  for  all 
the  financial  ills  which  have  so  persistently 
followed  the  attempt  to  place  the  country 
on  the  gold  basis,  There  was  then  no  hint 
that  the  "legal  tender  notes"  contributed  to 
the  financial  embarrassment.  It  was  the  pur- 
chase of  silver  that  lay  at  the  root  of  the  evil. 
Do  away  with  that,  and  all  will  be  well.  The 
evil  complained  of  remained  ;  like  Banqo's 
ghost,  it  would  not  down. 

Prices  declined.  The  volume  of  debt  in- 
creased. Gold  continued  to  go  out  in  pay- 
ment of  debts.     And  the  Secretary  has  dis- 


1  The  contraction  of  the  currency  by  five  per  cent,  of 
its  volume  means  the  depreciation  of  the  property  of  the 
country  Three  Thousand  Millions  of  Dollars. — Senator 
Plumb,  of  Kansas,  March  26th,  1888.  "Congressional  Rec- 
ord," part  3,  150th  Congress,  first  session,  page  2395. 


124  Latest  Remedy. 

covered  that  the  only  cause  was,  has  been, 
and  now  is,  "the  legal  tender  note." 

The  total  volume  of  these  legal  tender 
notes  amounts  to  about  486,264,296  dollars, 
consisting  of  346,681,016  greenbacks,  and 
139,563,280  treasury  notes  issued  in  the  pur 
chase  of  silver.  To  withdraw  such  a  sum 
from  the  present  inadequate  money  and  cur- 
rency supply  would  close  every  savings  bank, 
every  national  bank,  every  trust  company, 
every  railroad,  every  insurance  company,  ev- 
ery manufactory,  every  store.  Bankruptcies 
would  prevail,  no  business  could  be  done, 
and  prices  would  fall  to  a  point  never  before 
reached  in  our  country's  history,  and  civili- 
zation and  progress  would  become  as  a 
dream,  yet  such  is  the  blind  subserviency  of 
the  administration  cuckoos,  that  all  the  dis- 
asters which  follow  unusual  contraction  of 
money  and  currency  volume  are  set  at  naught, 
laws  disregarded  and  theories  substituted  in 
derogation  of  the  sovereign  will  of  the  peo- 
ple. 

Nowhere  in  the  United  States  laws  is 
there  a  legislative  shall,  or  a  legislative  may, 
in  relation  to  the  Treasury  Department 
maintaining  a  gold  reserve  of    100  million 


Latest  Remedy.  125 

dollars.  The  people  have  declared  through 
congressional  resolutions,  "that  to  pay  the 
principal  and  interest  of  the  public  debt  in 
silver  dollars,  would  not  be  in  violation  of 
the  public  faith  or  in  derogation  of  the 
rights  of  the  public  credit,"  and  Mr.  Carlisle 
voted  for  that  resolution.  Notpnly  does  Mr. 
Carlisle  refuse  to  pay  the  public  credit  in 
silver,  but  when  the  law  expressly  gives  to 
the  government  the  option  to  pay  in  silver, 
or  gold,  he  surrenders  that  option  to  the 
creditor;  he  does  more  than  that,  he  insists 
upon  paying  in  gold,  thereby  inviting,  aid- 
ing and  encouraging  the  drain  of  gold, 
and  then  whines  out  the  miserable  subter- 
fuge, that  the  legal  tender  note  is  the  cause 
of  all  the  financial  embarrassments,  which 
effect  the  productive  industries  of  the  peo- 
ple. 

With  a  reasonably  honest  man  as  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  one  who  would  respect 
and  execute  the  laws  of  the  nation,  in  rela- 
tion to  national  finances,  all  the  evils  of 
which  Mr.  Carlisle  complains  would  van- 
ish. There  would  be  no  more  bonds  add- 
ed to  the  public  debt;  there  would  be  no 
more  surrender  of  the  power  and   duty  of 


1 26  Latest  Remedy. 

the  department  to  a  brokerage  syndicate. 
The  majesty  of  the  law  would  prevail  and 
the  nation's  resources  be  honored  and  re- 
spected. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

UNITE  OR  DIE. 
(Franklin's  advice  to  the  American  Colonists  in  1754.) 

If  it  were  necessary  that  the  American 
colonists  should,  in  1754,  unite  for  the  com- 
mon good,  for  self-preservation,  for  the  en- 
joyment of  the  rights  of  self-government  : 
to  us,  their  successors,  responsible  for  the 
preservation  of  popular  government,  the 
day,  the  hour,  has  come  when  the  people 
must  lay  aside  their  prejudices,  their  party 
subserviency,  and  unite  as  one  man  to  re- 
store the  government  upon  the  great  prin- 
ciples established  and  administered  by  the 
fathers — by  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison, 
Jackson,  and  Lincoln — which  is  a  govern- 
ment for  all  the  people  upon  the  one  common 
basis  of  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Justice  ! 

The  struggle  of  people  to  be  free,  to  en- 
joy the  blessings  of  liberty,  equality,  and 
justice,  has  been  growing  with  the  years  since 
Christ  declared  for  the  liberty  of  mankind 
and  sealed  his  devotion  to  that  cause  with 
his  life's  blood  upon  the  hill  of  Calvary. 

The  American  people  are  called  upon 
for  no  such  supreme  sacrifice.     They  have 


128  Unite  or  Die. 

only  to  unite;  to  lay  aside  partisanship,  and 
put  on  patriotism  ;  to  accept  the  essential 
things  which  make  for  the  good  of  all  ;  and 
lay  aside  those  non-essentials,  upon  which 
they  are  divided. 

The  Republic  was  established  by  such 
wise  and  patriotic  concert  of  action. 

The  Republic  has  been  maintained  by 
no  other  course. 

If  the  Republic  is  to  endure,  the  people 
must  unite  !  must  assert  their  power  at  the 
ballet  box,  in  order  that  those  blessings 
which  the  fathers  bequeathed  as  an  imper- 
ishable legacy  to  us,  may  be  transmitted  to 
future  generations  to  the  upbuilding  of  hu- 
manity, the  maintainance  of  justice,  and  the 
glory  of  God. 

The  situation  demands  a  more  exalted 
manhood  ;  a  higher  patriotism  ;  a  broader 
charity  ;  a  clearer  grasp  of  truth  ;  the  subju- 
gation of  greed  ;  dispensing  with  the  envi- 
ronments of  old  party  lines,  and  uniting;  that 
the  Republic  may  enter  upon  a  new  life, 
which  shall  be  as  a  beacon  lighting  the  na- 
tions of  the  earth  onward  and  upward  to 
perfect  peace. 


Objections  and  Answers. 


OBJECTION  NO.  ONE. 


"If  silver  is  to  be  placed  on  an  equal  footing; 
with  gold,  there  must  be  adequate  means  of  main- 
taining; the  parity." 


PARITY — WHAT  IT  IS  AND  WHAT  IT  IS  NOT. 

Before  we  can  intelligently  discuss  the 
philosophy  of  parity,  in  a  monetary  sense,  we 
must  arrive  at  what  is  meant  by  parity.  Par- 
ity means  equality.  The  coins  to  be  fabri- 
cated of  silver  must  be  in  every  respect  the 
equals  of  gold  coins,  in  their  rights  of  mint- 
age and  in  legal  tender.  This  is  essential  to 
parity  !  Without  it  no  element  of  parity  ex- 
ists. To  speak  of  a  parity  between  coins  of 
gold,  fabricated  at  the  mint  freely,  in  un- 
limited quantities  and  gratuitously,  for  all 
who  deposit  gold  metal  for  coinage,  and  such 
coins  a  full  legal  tender;  and  of  coins  of  sil- 
ver, where  the  metal  is  not  coined  freely  to 


130  Objection  Que. 

all  comers,  and  which  coins  are  limited  in 
their  legal  tender,  is  in  violation  of  the 
ethics  of  parity.  THERE  MUST  BE 
equal  rights  of  coinage,  equal  function  as 
money,  before  the  elements  of  parity  exist, 
in  relation  to  coins  of  silver  and  coins  of 
gold  ! 

"But,"  says  some  one,  "when  the  gold 
coins  are  melted  into  bullion,  the  bullion 
is  worth,  sic,  as  much  per  ounce  as  it  was  in 
the  coins,  provided  you  have  it  in  sums  over 
one  hundred  dollars:"  And  seem  to  infer 
from  that  fact  that  there  is  some  quality  in 
the  gold  that  is  not  found  in  the  silver  ;  for 
it  is  asserted  that  silver  coins,  melted  into 
bullion,  are  worth,  sic,  less  than  fifty  cents 
on  the  dollar  ;  and  this  is  offered  as  evid- 
ence of  some  quality  lacking  in  the  silver. 
The  only  element  lacking  is  justice,  equality. 
The  reason,  and  the  only  reason,  WHY 
the  gold  bullion  has  a  fixed  and  unchange- 
able value  (market  price)  per  fine  ounce  is, 
because  it  is  received  at  the  mints,  and 
coined  into  money,  for  the  use  and  benefit 
of  the  depositor.  Silver  bullion  is  not  now 
so  received  and  coined,  hence  the  crucible 
test,  the  test  of  the  melting-pot,  as  it  is 
termed,   is  only   an   indictment  against  the 


( Objection  One. 


J.V 


government  that  treats  its  coins  in  a  manner 
so  dishonest,  so  destructive  to  the  business 
interest  of  the  people.  Open  the  mints  to 
the  coinage  of  silver  upon  the  same  terms 
that  gold  is  coined,  and  the  coins  of  both 
metals  a  full  legal  tender,  and  "parity"  is  at 
once  restored,  and  the  market  price  of  the 
bullion  metal  is  as  unchangingly  fixed  as  is 
that  of  gold. 

That  such  would  be  the  fact  there  is  the 
most  conclusive  proof.  Take  the  fifty  years 
1823  to  1873,  before  silver  was  deprived  of 
free  coinage  and  of  true  money  function. 
The  Director  of  the  Mint,  Report  Produc- 
tion of  Gold  and  Silver,  1893,  Page  25T» 
shows  that  the  market  ratio  of  silver  changed 
in  those  fifty  years  from  lowest  to  highest 
74-100  of  one  per  cent.,  or  from  15.93  in  1843 
to  15.19  in  1859.  In  1873  it  was  J5-92-  Now 
as  to  production  and  quantities  of  silver  and 
gold,  and  the  quantity  ratio  between  them. 
From  1800  to  18 10  there  was  in  the  world 
33.6572  silver  to  1  gold;  from  1810  to  1820, 
34.0602  silver  to  1  gold;  from  1850  to  1890, 
19.7481  silver  to  1  gold.  Here  is  a  change 
in  quantity  ratio  of  nearly  forty  per  cent., 
which  had  no  greater  effect  upon  the  mar- 
ket price,  or  ratio,  than   74-100  of  one  per 


132  Objection  One. 

cent.  This  constant  unchanging  price  of 
silver  and  gold  bullion  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  mints  were  open  to  the  coinage  of 
both  metals,  and  that  coins  of  both  metals 
performed  the  money  function — legal  ten- 
der. The  mints  of  the  United  States  are 
open  to  the  coinage  of  all  the  gold  of  the 
world,  at  the  rate  of  $20.67  f°r  each  ounce, 
and  were  no  other  mints  open  to  the  coin- 
age of  gold,  the  price,  or  market  equivalence 
of  gold  metal,  would  still  be  $20.67,  less  the 
cost  of  carriage  to  the  United  States  mints. 
Why  ?  Because  the  United  States  converts 
the  bullion  into  money ;  and  the  people  of 
the  United  States  will  sell,  or  exchange,  any- 
thing they  possess  for  money. 

But  this  fact  brings  no  gold  for  coinage. 
Therefore  as  soon  as  the  mints  of  the  Unit- 
ed States  are  open  to  the  coinage  of  all  the 
silver  of  the  world  at  the  rate  of  $1.29.29  for 
each  ounce,  and  the  dollars,  armed  with  the 
money  function;  when  that  is  done,  every 
ounce  of  silver  bullion  on  the  earth's  surface 
available  for  coinage,  becomes  fixed  at  the 
price  of  $1.29.29,  less  the  cost  of  carriage  to 
the  United  States.  Why  ?  For  the  same 
reason  that  gold  has  its  unchanging  price. 
It  would  be  converted  into  money,  and  the 


Objection  One.  133 

people  of  the  United  States  will  sell  or  ex- 
change anything  they  possess  for  money  ! 
But  this  fact  will  bring  no  silver  for  coin- 
age. 

Parity  of  coins  will  be  maintained  by  legal 
tender ;  full,  complete.  Parity  of  metals 
with  coin,  can  only  be  maintained  by  abso- 
lute justice,  by  freedom  of  access  to  the 
mint.  "For  in  a  country  in  which  the  coin- 
age of  silver  is  free,  the  commercial  value 
of  silver,  expressed  in  silver,  can  never 
widely  depart  from  its  coinage  value,  it  be- 
ing optional  with  the  owner  of  the  metal  to 
export  it  or  have  it  coined."1 

Neither  a  parity  in  coins,  or  a  parity  of 
uncoined  metals,  can  be  preserved  by  re- 
demption of  the  degraded  coins  in  the  leg- 
ally preferred  coins. 

Parity  will  be  maintained  by  exact  equal- 
ity of  right,  duty,  and  function,  and  -any- 
thing less  than  this  is  destructive  to  parity, 
is  a  fraud,  a  delusion,  and  an  impossibility.2 

1  See  Report  Director  of  Mint,  Production  of  Precious 
Metals,  1893,  PaSe  2I3- 

2  "Parity  may  be  maintained  and  every  declaration  of 
governmental  policy  fully  met  by  accepting  for  all  dues, 
public  or  private,  including  duties  upon  imports,  silver  and 
paper  issues  of  the  nation  of  every  description  whatso- 
ever."— Hon.  Joseph  C,  Sibley,  speech,  Jan.  8,  1895,  page  9. 


OBJECTION  NO.  TWO. 


"Practically  there  is  not  a  bi-metallic  nation  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  to-da}'." 


Whether  or  not  there  is  a  bi-metallic  na- 
tion "on  the  face  of  the  earth  to-day"  (1895), 
is  not  the  question  under  discussion  any- 
where, and  whether  true  or  not,  has  no 
weight  in  an  argument  wherein  the  restora- 
tion of  the  laws  of  the  Republic,  as  they  ex- 
isted from  before  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution and  up  to  1873,  is  the  issue.  By  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  silver  and 
gold  are  equally  money  metals.  By  existing 
laws  it  is  a  bi-metallic  nation.  The  people 
are  deprived  of  their  rights  by  dispensing 
with  statutes,  and  the  forced  and  unwar- 
rented  construction  put  upon  acts  of  Con- 
gress by  Executive  and  Department  officials, 
or  by  unconstitutional  enactments. 

Bimetallism1  consists  in  part  in  the  right 


1  The  monetary  standard  is  bi  metallic  when  by  law 
gold  and  silver  are  legal  tender  in  full  at  a  fixed  ratio,  and 
both  coined  to  all  comers  without  limitation. — Cernuschi 
Nomisma  on  Legal  Tender,  D.  Appleton  etc.,  N.  Y.,  1877. 


Object i o?i  Two.  135 

to  use,  the  power  to  use,  coins  of  silver  or  of 
gold,  one  or  both,  in  the  payment  of  all  debts, 
all  money  contracts,  and  the  redemption  of 
all  currencies.  It  is  not  material  whether 
there  are  more  coins  of  one  metal  than  of 
the  other  in  visible  use.  I  think  it  was 
Count  Wolowski  who  compared  bimetallism 
in  relation  to  money  and  price,  to  the  com- 
pound pendulum,  where,  by  the  unequal 
contraction  and  expansion  of  metals,  the 
length  of  the  pendulum  rod  is  maintained 
constant,  and  the  uniformity  of  its  motion 
preserved.  The  mechanism  of  this  opera- 
tion is  invisible,  insensible,  but  the  metals 
are  there,  and  whether  they  both  at  any 
time  carry  equally  the  weight  of  the  pendu- 
lum is  entirely  immaterial.  So  it  is  the  vol- 
ume of  money  available  for  daily  use  in  pay- 
ing debts  and  making  purchases,  that  stead- 
ies prices  and  builds  up  industries.  The  ma 
terial  of  whfch  money  is  made  performs  no 
money  function.  That  function  is  created 
by  positive  law. 

Bimetallism  in  the  United  States  would 
practically  double  the  volume  of  primary 
debt  paying  money.  It  would  decrease  the 
volume  of  credit  devices,  which  the  people 
are  compelled  to  use  as  substitutes  for  money, 


V 


i 3G  Objection  Two. 

which  would  relieve  the  people  from  a  par* 
alyzing  burden  of  interest  paid  for  the  use 
of  these  credit  devices,  these  substitutes  for 
money.  These  panic-breeding  corporation 
promises  to  pay  in  money  which  does  not 
exist,  which  cannot  be  obtained.  Promises 
to  pay,  which  are  a  lie  upon  their  face,  and 
a  fraud  upon  industry.  "Promises  which 
undertake  to  exceed  the  limitations  of  na- 
ture and  surpass  the  bounties  of  God."1 

l  "Shy lock,"  by  Gordon  Clark,  page  18. 


OBJECTION  NO.  THREE. 


"How  can  it  (Free  Coinage  of  Silver)  be  adopted 
without  putting-  this  country  on  the  monetary  basis 
of  the  semi-civilized  countries  of  South  America  and 
Asia?''  

"The  value  of  money  is  not  in  ite  substance,  but  in  the  legal  force 
with  which  its  substance  is  armed  by  positive  law."'— Steck's  Axioms 
No.  14. 

If  the  question  stated  above  carries  with 
it  by  implication  the  assertion  that,  because 
of  the  free  coinage  of  silver,  or  through  the 
use  of  silver  as  the  standard,  or  primary 
money  ot  a  country,  that  country,  by  reason 
of  its  use  of  silver  as  its  basis  of  money,  will 
be  thereby,  and  necessarily,  reduced  to  the 
condition  of  civilization,  material  progress, 
literature,  science,  and  invention  "of  the 
semi-civilized  countries  of  South  America 
and  Asia"  at  the  present  time.  Or  if  the 
question  is  intended  to  assert,  that  the  pres- 
ent conditions  of  the  peoples  referred  to, 
are  due  alone  to  the  silver  basis  for  money, 
it  is  of  far  reaching  and  immense  import- 
ance. 

If  the  question  doesn't  mean  all  this  what 
does  it  mean  ? 


138  Objection  Three. 

Analyzed  in  the  light  of  history  and  ex- 
perience, and  applying  the  rules  of  mone- 
tary science  to  the  duties  and  functions  per- 
formed by  money  in  the  affairs  of  men,  and 
the  effect  which  its  volume  available  for  such 
uses  has  in  developing  and  promoting  the 
natural  resources  of  a  country;. in  building 
up  its  industry  at  home,  and  extending  its 
trade,  both  domestic  and  foreign,  we  find 
that : 

All  countries,  peoples,  nations,  have  by 
slow  progression  ascended  from  a  condition 
of  semi-civilization,  and  in  that  upward  pro- 
gress money  has  been  a  "most  convenient 
^expedient,"  a  most  important  agency. 

Historically,  from  the  day  when  Abra- 
ham paid  silver  money  for  a  burial  place  for 
his  dead  wife  Sarah,  down  through  the 
ages,  money,  fabricated  of  silver,  has  been 
the  agent  which  has  moved  the  energies  of 
the  world  in  its  upward  and  onward  pro- 
gress. 

It  is  true  that  at  certain  epochs  in  the 
history  of  nations,  immense  progress  has 
been  made  while  using  a  bronze  coin,  or  an 
irredeemable  paper  currency. 

It  is  true  that  great  wars  arc  usually  car- 
ried on  by  the  use  of  a  paper  currency;  and 


Objection  Three.  ['39 

that  out  of  great  wars,  usually  great  advance- 
ments in  material  prosperity  are  achieved. 

When  the  desolation,  the  barbarism  of 
the  dark  ages  rested  upon  Europe;  when 
mankind  were  oppressed  by  poverty,  the 
first  ray  of  light,  of  relief,  dawned  with  the 
opening  of  silver  mines  in  Germany.  And 
when  the  silver  treasures  of  the  new  world 
were  discovered,  Europe  experienced  all  the 
blessings  of  abundant  money. 

Prosperity  unheard  of  before  fell  to  the 
lot  of  the  mass  of  the  people;  all  industries 
prospered,  and  civilization  started  on  it  up- 
ward and  onward  course. 

It  is  to  the  silver  mines  of  the  new  world 
that  civilization  owes  its  past  and  its  present 
progress. 

The  Almighty,  in  his  supreme  wisdom, 
created  silver  with  the  gold — more  silver 
than  gold.  There  is  more  use,  more  need 
of  silver  than  of  gold.  There  are  more  poor 
than  rich.1 

Silver  saved  civilization  to  the  world ; 
let  us  retain  silver  to  still  further  help  hu- 
manity on  its  upward  and  onward  struggles  | 


1  Of  the  seventy  millions  of  people  in  the  United  States 
sixty-five  millions  of  them  make  their  daily  cash  purchases 
in  sums  of  one  dollar  or  under. 


140  Objection  Three 

toward  that  goal  where  there  shall  be  jus 
tice  and   right  between  rich  and  poor,  and 
debt  and  usury  shall  be  as  a  vision  of  the 
dark  ages. 

If  the  question  under  discussion  carries 
with  it  the  proposition  that  comparisons 
shall  be  made  between  countries  with  the 
single  gold  standard  of  money,  and  those 
countries  using  silver  as  the  money  stand- 
ard, we  welcome,  aye,  we  challenge  the  com- 
parison. Great  Britain  is  the  ideal  gold 
standard  realm.  Its  people  are  of  the  hardy, 
indomitable,  inventive,  energetic,  aggressive, 
and  progressive  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  "whose 
drum-beat  encircles  the  earth;"  whose  manu- 
factures, railroads,  and  educational  institu- 
tions are  fully  developed,  whose  people  are 
learned  and  skilled  in  literature,  art  and 
science;  who  claim  to  levy  tribute  upon  the 
commerce  and  industry  of  the  world. 

Surely  here,  if  anywhere,  are  we  to  find 
the  supreme  advantages  which  follow  the 
gold  basis  for  money. 

For  a  country  on  the  silver  basis  we 
name  Mexico,  whose  population  is  largely 
composed  of  the  native  race  ;  whose  chief 
executive  is  of  that  race  ;  whose  industries 
have  barely  recovered  from  the  effects  of 


Objection  Three.  141 

the  French  invasion  under  Maximillian  ; 
whose  lines  of  transportation  are  but  illy 
adapted  to  meet  the  requirements  of  its  pro- 
ductions, due  to  its  conditions  of  soil  and 
climate  ;  whose  people  are  inclined  to  be  in- 
dolent, non-inventive  and  non-progressive. 
Now  take  the  ten  years,  1886  to  1895,  both 
inclusive,  and  Mexico  will  show  a  steadily 
improving  condition  of  all  its  industries, 
while  for  the  same  period  Great  Britain  will 
show  as  constant  a  decline.  England  will 
show  an  increase  in  usury  received  by  her 
money  lending  class,  and  she  also  shows  an 
immense  increase  of  poverty  among  her 
laboring-productive  population.  England 
shows  a  great  decline  in  the  selling  price  of 
her  lands,  and  a  decline  in  rentals  of  from 
one-half  to  two-thirds  former  rates  ;  yet  the 
condition  of  her  agricultural  classes  is  dis- 
astrous beyond  any  comparison  in  recent 
years  ;  and  most  fatal  of  all  to  England's 
industries,  her  export  trade  shows  an  al- 
most crushing  decline. 

Mexico,  with  her  silver  standard  and  free 
and  unlimited  coinage  of  silver,  shows  an 
immense  increase  of  wealth  among  the  com- 
mon people.  She  shows  a  large  advance  in 
the  selling  price  of  land.     Mexico  shows  an 


142  Objection  Three. 

immense  and  constantly  increasing  volume 
of  exports,  increasing  in  two  years  some  sev- 
enty million  dollars.  Her  agriculture  and 
manufactures  are  being  stimulated  and  de- 
veloped in  accordance  with  the  law  laid 
down  in  reply  to  Objection  No.  5. 

If  this  is  not  sufficient,  go  to  Egypt,  a 
gold  standard  country,  with  its  financial  af- 
fairs administered  by  Englishmen  and  in 
the  interest  of  English  usurers.  Where  it 
used  to  take  one  bale  of  cotton  to  pay  a 
debt  it  now  demands  three.  The  valley  of 
the  Nile  is  the  most  productive  soil  that  the 
sun  shines  on.  The  people  are  patient,  hard- 
working, frugal  living,  spending  little  in 
either  food  or  clothing,  yet  absolute  slaves 
to  the  English  tax  gatherer  of  sacred  gold. 

Portugal  is  another  shining  example  of 
a  nation's  industries  paralyzed  by  the  shrink- 
ing volume  of  money  caused  by  the  gold 
standard. 

I  cannot  recall  any  silver  standard,  silver 
using  country,  people,  or  tribe,  where  con- 
ditions are  as  bad  as  are  those  of  Egypt,  yet 
Egypt  has  the  gold  standard. 

In  some  of  the  South  American  States, 
revolutions,  rebellions  against  existing  gov- 
ernments, are  of   common  occurrence,    but 


Objection  11  nee.  143 

that  is  due  more  to  racial  causes  than  to  any 
question  of  standard  for  money. 

It  is  not  the  material  of  which  money  is 
made,  or  the  monetary  standard  of  a  country 
that  operates  upon  its  industries,  commerce, 
or  civilization.  It  is  the  volume  of  money 
available  for  use,  that  influences  industries, 
that  controls  prices,  and  if  in  sufficient  quan- 
tities, new  life,  new  vigor  new  development 
will  surely  follow. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  have 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  restoration  of  the 
laws  of  the  Republic  as  they  existed  prior 
to  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  down  to 
the  treacherous  and  deceptive  act  of  1873  ; 
on  the  contrary  though  that  restoration  is 
their  only  hope  of  relief  from  being  com- 
pelled to  give  three  bales  of  cotton  or  three 
bushels  of  wheat,  or  three  barrels  of  beef  or 
pork  or  three  day's  labor  where  one  of  each 
would  be  all  that  justice,  equity  and  good 
conscience  could  demand. 


OBJECTION  NO.  FOUR. 


"Upon  the  restoration  of  silver  to  coinage  into 
full  legal  tender  money;  all  gold  (money  and  metal) 
would  leave  the  United  States." 


As  the  advocates  of  the  single  gold  stan- 
dard for  money  have  persistently  insisted 
that  such  would  be  the  result  following  the 
restoration  of  the  rights  of  mintage  to  sil- 
ver ;  and  as  these  advocates  are  principally 
bankers  and  bank  agencies,  or  such  agenc- 
ies as  are  more  or  less  dependent  upon  or 
employed  by  them,  it  might  reasonably  be 
expected  that  they  would  desire  to  prove 
that  gold  would  leave  the  United  States  up- 
on the  resumption  of  silver  coinage,  and  that 
exportation  of  gold  would  follow.  There 
would  also  be  a  withdrawal  of  gold  from 
circulation  through  the  same  agencies,  and 
for  the  same  reasons. 

If  domestic  and  foreign  commerce,  to- 
gether with  the  demand  for  money,  were 
left  to  the  operation  of  natural  legitimate 
transactions  in  the  usual  course  of  the  mar- 


Objection  Four.  145 

ket,  the  flow  of  gold  to  or  from  the  United 
States  would  not  cause  any  serious  loss  of 
that  metal.  If  gold  should  be  exported,  it 
would  be  done  for  the  purpose  of  creating 
such  a  monetary  disturbance  as  would  en- 
able the  bankers  to  pirate  the  busines  inter- 
ests of  the  country  for  mercenery  purposes, 
as  in  the  panic  of  1893. x 


1  New  York,  June  27,  1S93.— Henry  Clews  was  of  the 
opinion  that  the  suspension  of  silver  coinage  in  India  ought 
to  prompt  President  Cleveland  to  call  congress  together 
earlier  than  September. 

"There  is  every  reason,"  he  said,  "why  congress  should 
be  brought  together  at  the  very  earliest  possible  day.  The 
houses  that  were  engaged,  until  lately,  in  shipping  gold 
became  so  zealous  in  that  enterprise  that  they  tried  to  out- 
strip each  other.  The  result  was  that  more  gold  was  ac- 
tually shipped  than  Europe  required.  The  natural  result 
must  appear  in  the  return  of  the  surplus  thus  exported. 
Exchange  is  now  fallen,  indeed,  to  the  specie  importing 
point.  As  soon  as  our  crops  ripen  there  will  be  inevitably 
a  return  of  a  good  deal  of  gold  to  the  country.  One  of  the 
arguments  in  favor  of  the  repeal  of  the  Sherman  law  has 
been  that  the  baser  metal  has  driven  the  finer  metal  out  of 
the  country.  In  a  little  while,  with  gold  returning  to  us, 
the  strength  of  that  argument  will  be  sapped.  An  early 
session  of  congress  will  leave  the  argument  still  in  full 
force." 

Note  the  frankness  of  the  admission  that  the  standard 
argument  that  silver  was  the  cause  of  the  export  of  gold, 
was  a  known  and  realized  fraud  and  lie,  which  would  be 
exposed  by  gold  returning  to  this  country  without  the  re- 
peal of  the  Sherman  law,  and  that  in  order  still  further  to 


146  Object  ion  Four. 

But  this  condition  could  not  be  main- 
tained for  any  length  of  time,  as  will  be 
shown  in  reply  to  Objection  No.  5. 


use  the  lie,  Congress  must  be  called  in  special  session  at 
an  early  date,  for,  if  delayed,  gold  would  inevitably  return 
and  the  treacherous  falsehood  be  exposed.  Study  the  state- 
ment carefully. 


OBJECTION  NO.  FIVE. 


"That  the  export  trade  of  the  United  States  would 
be  lost  and  that  imports  would  increase!" 


No  act  of  Congress  could  so  enlarge  out- 
export  trade  as  would  the  restoration  of  sil- 
ver to  fr-ee  coinage  into  full  legal  tender 
money. 

Why?  Because  the  dollar  would  at  once 
fall  in  gold  value,  which  "pari  pasu"  lowers 
the  rate  of  exchange,  and  exports  are  stim- 
ulated ;  while  at  the  same  time  imports  must 
decrease. 

Again,  Why?  Because  all  imported  goods 
must  be  paid  for  in  the  money  of  the  coun- 
try where  purchased — Gold.  This  payment 
in  gold  would  make  the  imported  goods  so 
expensive  that  home  manufactured  goods 
would  take  the  place  of  the  imported. 

OUR    SILVER    DOLLAR    AT    A    PREMIUM. 

"As  the  result  of  our  silver  money  re- 
striction upon  importations  setting  all  out- 
spindles  turning,  employing  operatives  at 
full  time,  and  these  operatives  made  there- 
by to  enlarge  our  aggregate  of  home  con- 


I4§  Objection  Five. 

sumers  of  all  home  products  ;  with  our  trade 
settlements  in  merchandise  serving  to  en- 
large the  exportations  of  our  spare  products; 
with  Europe's  prices  for  our  products  en- 
hanced by  our  enlargement  of  Europe's  ag- 
gregate of  money,  our  achievement  next 
evident  will  be  a  credit  of  balance  of  trade 
established  in  Emrope  for  the  merchants  of 
the  United  States.  At  that  point  exchange 
on  London  sells  in  Wall  Street  at  a  dis- 
count. This  means  a  draft  on  gold  payable 
seven  days  from  date  offered  at  a  discount 
in  standard  silver  dollars — the  despised,  stig- 
matized 50-cent  silver  piece  in  Wall  Street, 
held  at  a  preminm  over  gold  in  London.  It 
means  our  silver  dollars  and  our  gold  coin 
at  par  ;  bimetallism  a  reality  in  the  United 
States.  Our  prosperity  as  her  example,  and 
to  such  a  degree  at  her  expense,  is  likely  to 
enforce  the  influence  of  Manchester's  opin- 
ion of  English  monometallism,  the  result  of 
which  may  mean  the  abandonment  by  Eng- 
land of  her  vicious  monetary  system  for  bi- 
metallism universally. 

Europe's  only  silver  is  her  money.  Eu- 
rope's silver  coin  values  silver  from  3.06 
cents  to  over  13.33  cent  per  dollar  more  than 
ours.     Her  "silver  pots  and  spoons"  carry 


Objectiom  Five.  149 

the  additional  price  of  labor  in  them.  She 
will  ship  us  gold,  therefore,  rather  than  sil- 
ver, at  a  minimum  preference  of  over  3  per 
cent. 

But  because  we  are  Europe's  "best  source 
of  supply'  for  our  great  surplus  of  staple 
commodities,  Europe  will  buy  of  us,  even 
though  we  do  not  buy  of  her.  As,  for  in- 
stance, we  buy  from  Cuba  $75,000,000  worth 
of  goods  a  year  and  sell  to  Cuba  $12,000,000 
to  $25,000,000  only  ;  or  as  Brazil  finds  a  mar- 
ket here  for  $70,000,000  of  her  commodities 
and  buys  $40,000,000  only,  of  our  commodi- 
ties in  return,  and  finally,  as  England  on  the 
contrary,  is  debtor  to  the  United  States  for 
an  excess  of  $100,000,000  a  year  by  average 
in  our  mutual  barter  of  commodities  with 
her.1 

Lord  Farrer  of  England,  a  member  of  the 
Hershell  Commission  and  who  signed  the 
report  of  the  gold  men  recommending  the 
gold  standard  for  India  without  a  gold  cur- 
rency, as  late  as  July,  1894,  says: 

"The  government  of  the  United  States 
has  only  to  revert  to  a  silver  standard  itself, 


1  W.  P.  St.  John,  President  of  the  Mercantile  National 
Bank  of  New  York,  before  the  Banking  and  Currency  Com- 
mittee House  of  Representatives,  December  15th,  1894. 


150  Objection  Five. 

and  the  dollar  will  at  once  fall  in  gold  value, 
and  the  United  States  will  reap  the  advan- 
tage of  a  lowered  exchange  in  an  immense 
increase  of  exportation  to  countries  with  a 
gold  standard."1 

President  Andrews  of  Brown  University, 
in  an  interview  published  the  6th  of  April, 
1895,  upon  the  same  subject  said  :  "The  im- 
mediate result  would  be  a  tremendous  re- 
vival of  business  and  restoration  of  depressed 
values.  Money  hoarded  in  banks  would  be 
turned  loose.  We  should  wrest  from  Eu- 
rope most  of  the  trade  with  silver  countries, 
our  factories  would  be  worked  to  their  full 
capacity.  All  of  our  gold  would  pass  to  Eu- 
rope but  we  would  not  need  it."  This  last 
statement  means  that  exports  from  the 
United  States  would  so  largely  increase  in 
volume  a?id price  that  it  would  more  than  pay 
the  annual  interest  due  Europe,  together 
with  the  cost  of  imports,  and  that  money 
would  come  to  the  United  States.  And  as 
European  money  is  gold,  such  payments 
would  be  made  in  gold,  or  gold  exchange. 
The  effect  to  follow  the  restoration  of  silver 


1  Mark  the  words,  "Immense  increase  of  exports  to 
countries  with  a  gold  standard."— See  Fortnightly  Review," 
July,  1894,  page  117. 


Objection  Five.  i  5  1 

as  primary  money  by  the  United  Stales  has 
been  stated  by  Senator  Cameron  in  words 
so  concise  and  logical  that  they  need  no 
elucidating  argument  : 

"The  barrier  of  gold  would  be  more  fatal 
than  any  barrier  of  a  custom  house." 

"The  bond  of  silver  would  be  stronger 
than  any  bond  of  free  trade." 


OBJECTION  NO.  SIX, 


"That  the  silver  of  the  world,  including  India, 
would  come  to  the  United  States  to  be  converted 
into  mone3r." 


This  objection  is  supposed  to  be,  if  not 
impossible  to  answer,  at  least  one  of  the 
most  difficult  to  disprove.  Like  all  error, 
the  assertion  can  be  made  in  a  few  words; 
while,  to  expose  the  error  and  prove  the 
truth,  demands  many  words. 

The  objection  seems  to  proceed  upon  a 
theory  that  there  can  be  in  a  nation  too 
much  standard,  primary,  full  legal  tender 
money,  procured  by  the  people  in  the  course 
of  the  legitimate  development  of  their  ener- 
gies expended  in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil, 
in  manufacture,  commerce,  or  mining.  A 
theory  so  wholly  abhorent  to  the  physical, 
mental,  and  moral  conditions  of  citizens  of 
a  republic,  that  it  has  no  place  in  economics, 
or  justice. 

Under  the  operation  of  a  free  coinage 
law,  silver  would  be  converted  into  full  legal 
tender  money,  armed  with  the  function  of 


Objection  Six.  153 

payment  of  all  debts,  all  taxes,  and  the  re- 
demption of  all  currencies.  The  govern- 
ment does  not  purchase  the  bullion ;  nor 
does  the  government  attempt  to  exchange 
gold  coins  for  silver  coins,  or  silver  coins 
for  gold  coins.  The  depositor  of  silver  bull- 
ion receives  in  silver  dollars  the  number 
fabricated  from  the  metal  deposited.  They 
are  his.  He  takes  them  away,  and  disposes 
of  them  at  his  pleasure. 

Now  there  are  four  ways,  and  four  ways 
only,  by  which  those  dollars  can  be  paid 
out. 

First.  The  owner  of  them  can  pay  what 
he  owes. 

Second.  He  can  purchase  some  American 
product,  either  of  the  farm,  shop,  or  mill. 

Third.  He  can  invest  in  some  American 
enterprise. 

Fourth.  He  can  dispose  of  them  in  phil- 
anthropic, benevolent,  or  charitable  pur- 
poses. 

Should  foreign  silver  come  to  the  United 
States  mints  for  coinage  into  dollars,  it  must 
come  under  some  or  all  of  those  conditions 
and  subject  to  those  limitations.  The  coins 
become  lawful  money  of  the  United  States  ; 
and  lawful  money  will  buy  of  every  producer 


154  Objection  Six. 

of  commodities  in  the  United  States,  all  that 
he  has  to  sell  ;  and  this  proposition  includes 
lands  and  city  property. 

It  is  not  the  material  of  which  money  is 
made,  nor  the  cost  of  its  production,  that 
constitutes  any  faculty  of  money  whatso- 
ever. The  money  function  consists  solely 
in  its  absolute  debt  paying  power,  conferred 
by  positive  law.  And  as  in  the  world's  his- 
tory the  supply  of  money  has  never  equaled 
the  demand  for  money,  and  as  every  inter- 
est bearing  debt,  of  long  or  short  term,  is 
cumulative  evidence  that  the  supply  of  mon- 
ey is  less  than  the  demand,  we  may  rest  as- 
sured that,  were  all  the  silver  of  the  world 
available  for  coinage  brought  to  the  United 
States  and  coined  into  dollars,  it  would  not 
rill  the  needed  money  supply,  and  that  credit 
devices  and  evidences  of  debt  would  still  be 
necessary. 

The  fiction  that  foreign  silver  would 
come  to  the  United  States  has  been  aband- 
oned by  the  most  pronounced  advocates  of 
the  single  gold  standard.  Mr.  Edward  At- 
kinson admits  that  none  would  come.  There 
is  none  that  can  come.  The  consumption  of 
silver  for  all  purposes,  in  periods  of  fifty 
years,  is  greater  than  the  production  for  the 


Objection  Six.  1 5  5 

same  period.1  There  is  no  overproduction 
of  silver.  If  production  were  quadrupled, 
and  it  were  all  coined  into  money,  the  re- 
sults would  be  of  vast  benefit  to  the  human 
race.  The  burden  of  constantly  increasing 
debt  would  be  stayed,  industries  stimulated, 
debts  paid,  and  civilization  lifted  out  of  the 
mire  of  poverty  and  degradation  which  now 
environs  it,  through  a  decreasing  volume  of 
money  and  constantly  increasing  volume  of 
credit  devices,  as  substitutes  for  money  It 
is  this  baseless  volume  of  credit,  built  on 
nothing,  a  creation  of  the  pen  on  the  books 
of  banks  and  kindred  institutions,  that  has 
been  the  cause  of  every  monetary  panic  in 

1  Mulhall's  Dictionary  of  Statistics,  and  English  au- 
thority, on  page  221,  gives  the  world's  product  of  gold  for 
50  years— 1831  to  1S80— as  6,357  tons,  or  12,714,000  pounds. 

The  world's  consumption  of  gold,  same  period,  6,518 
tons,  or  13,036,000  pounds. 

Excess  of  consumption  over  production,  i6t  tons,  or 
322,000  pounds. 

On  page  416,  the  same  authority  gives  the  production 
of  silver  in  the  world  for  the  same  period,  as  57,270  tons,  or 
1 14,540,000  pounds. 

The  consumption  of  silver,  62,500  tons,  or  10,460,000 
pounds. 

Excess  of  consumption,  5,230  tons,  or  10,460,000  pounds. 

Recapitulation.— Excess  of  gold  consumption,  161  tons, 
or  322,000  pounds  ;  excess  of  silver  consumption,  5,230  tons, 
or  10,560,000  pounds. 


156  Objection  Six. 

the  United  States  since  we  had  a  history. 
Not  too  much  money,  but  too  much  credit, 
has  been,  and  will  continue  to  be,  the  cause 
of  business  disaster  and  the  curse  of  national 
policy. 


OBJECTION  NO.  SEVEN. 


"The  American  people  must  pay  their  debts  in 
the  best  money." 


MONEY  WHICH  COSTS  THE  MOST  TO  GET,  WHICH 
DESTROYS  INDUSTRIES,  TO  THE  ADVANTAGE 
OF  USURERS  !       WHAT  IS  BEST  MONEY? 

This  objection  raises  the  whole  question 
as  to  what  is  money,  and  whether  there  can 
be  a  best  money — whether  there  can  be  good 
money,  medium  money,  poor  money,  bad 
money. 

As  most  of  these  phrases  in  use  in  rela- 
tion to  money  have  been  clearly  analyzed  in 
What  is  money?  (see  page  20)  What  is  cur- 
rency? (see  page  22)  it  is  not  necessary  to 
repeat  here.  The  advocates  of  the  gold 
standard  define  good  money,  best  money,  as 
that  which  will  stand  the  test  of  the  melting 
pot.     Says  Edward  Atkinson  : 

"It  is  by  the  ordeal  of  fire  that  money 
may  be  tried.  The  coins  which,  being  melted 
down,  retain  the  entire  value  for  which  they 
were  legal  tender  before  they  were  melted  down 
are  good  money .  Those  which  do  not  retain 
it  are  not  good  money." 


I  5S  Objection  Seven. 

This  is  true  of  gold,  and  Why?  Because 
the  mint  stands  ready  to  reconvert  the  melt- 
ed coins  into  full  legal  tender  money  and 
without  charge.  Open  the  mint  to  silver 
and  the  same  tests  will  bring  the  same  re- 
sults. And  thereby  it  is  conclusively  proven 
by  the  ordeal  prescribed  by  the  gold  stand- 
ard advocates,  that  silver  coins  are  just  as 
sound,  good  money  as  are  gold  coins,  noth- 
ing more,  nothing  less.1 

In  the  nature  of  things  there  can  be  no 
degrees  in  money.  Money  is  either  good, 
sound,  honest,  or  it  is  not  money.  It  is  by 
virtue  of  the  omnipotent  power  of  the  law 
and  an  open  mint  that  sound  metallic  money 
is  created.  Money  which  can  be  tried  and 
proven  by  the  ordeal  of  fire  ;  and  this  is  true 
solely  and  because  the  mint  will  receive  the 
bullion  and  convert  it  into  coin  for  the  use 
and  benefit  of  the  depositor. 


1  See  Answer  to  Objection  No.  6,  page  152. 


OBJECTION  NO.  EIGHT. 


"That  the  United  States  government  is  not  able 
of  itself  to  sustain  bimetallism,  and  that  such  policy 
should  not  be  adopted  without  an  international 
agreement." 


"Through  the  paths  of  by  ami  by  you  come  to  the  region  of  never.' 
—Spanish  Proverb. 

This  theory  against  national  and  in  favor 
of  international  bimetallism  is  founded  on 
pure  assumption,  with  no  facts  to  justify  it, 
that  it  is  against  experience  and  that  we 
have  a  right,  as  a  first  step,  to  be  put  back 
just  where  we  were  in  1873,  when  free  bime- 
tallic coinage  was  taken  from  us  by  fraud  ; 
that  it  is  from  that  standpoint  and  not  from 
the  present  condition  that  the  question  shall 
be  considered.  The  restoration  of  free  bi- 
metallic coinage  is  a  matter  of  absolute  right 
and  justice. 

OUR  MONETARY  INDEPENDENCE  HERETOFORE. 

When  Congress  passed  its  first  coinage 
law  in  1 792,  there  was  no  international  agree- 
ment, or  suggestion  of  one,  nor  was  there  in 
183*4,  when  the  ratio  was  changed  from  15 


i6o  Objection  Eight. 

to  i  to  1 6  to  I,  nor  even  in  1873,  when  silver 
was  demonetized.  We  legislated  indepen- 
dently for  eighty  years,  coining  both  metals 
at  one  ratio  for  forty-two  years,  and  at  anoth- 
er for  thirty-nine  years,  and  then  demone- 
tized one  of  them.  We  acted  for  ourselves 
all  these  years,  why  not  now?  If  it  was  not 
essential  to  ask  the  consent  of  other  nations 
when  we  demonetized  silver,  why  is  it  nec- 
essary to  do  so  now  before  we  can  restore  it 
to  coinage?  Is  the  right  given  Congress  by 
the  Constitution  to  "coin  money  and  regu- 
late the  value  thereof,"  an  absolute  right 
with  undivided  responsibility,  or  is  it  merely 
a  permissive  grant  to  be  exercised  only  with 
the  concurrence  of  England  and  other  for- 
eign nations?  If  the  latter,  when,  where, 
and  in  what  manner  did  we  lose  our  mone- 
tary independence  ? 

England  began  the  demonetization  of 
silver  in  1816  and  completed  it  in  1821.  It 
was  her  independent  act,  the  result  of  no 
international  agreement,  nor  was  one  thought 
of. 

Austria  and  Prussia  made  silver  the  sole 
standard  in  1857,  and  Germany  established 
the  "Imperial   Gold  Measurement"  in  1873. 


Objection  Eight.  161 

Again  no  international  agreement   or   sign 
of  one. 

If  all  these  changes  occurred  without  an 
international  agreement,  why  the  necessity 
for  any  now?  Of  course  there  is  none,  but 
once  admit  such  a  prerequisite  and  bimet- 
allists  risk  their  whole  case  upon  any  one  of 
the  considerable  nations  of  the  world,  and 
the  great  majority  of  those  who  advocate 
bimetallism  are  confident  that  they  can  al- 
ways rely  upon  England  refusing  her  con- 
sent to  any  international  agreement  favor- 
ing bimetallism. 

THE  EXAMPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

Leaving  the  field  of  conjecture  we  have 
the  example  of  France,  with  free  coinage  of 
silver  and  gold  at  15^  to  1  from  1803  to  1873. 
During  this  time  there  was  a  wide  variation 
in  the  proportionate  product  of  the  two  met- 
als. From  1803  to  1820  the  yield  was  $4  of 
silver  to  $1  of  gold,  and  in  the  decade  ended 
with  i860  it  was  $4  of  gold  to  $1  of  silver. 

At  one  time,  1820  to  1847,  the  silver 
coined  was  nine  times  the  gold  coinage,  and 
at  another,  1857  to  1866,  the  gold  coinage 
was  sixty-four  times  the  silver  coinage,  and 
2  per  cent,  was  the  widest  variation  from  par 


1 62  Objection  Eight. 

in  the  market  ratio  between  gold  and  silver 
bullion  in  these  eighty  years. 

What  France  did  we  can  do.  Why  not? 
She  did  not  average  half  our  present  popu- 
lation ;  the  metal  product  varied  from  4  of 
silver  to  1  of  gold  to  4  of  gold  to  1  of  silver; 
coinage  shifted  from  9  of  silver  to  1  of  gold 
to  64  of  gold  to  1  of  silver  ;  the  stock  of 
money  the  most  of  the  time  was  69  per  cent, 
silver  and  only  31  per  cent,  gold,  and  yet 
with  open  mints  to  free  bimetallic  coinage 
she  maintained  the  two  metals  at  a  parity 
for  eighty  years.  Her  currency  was  some- 
times mainly  silver  and  then  principally  gold, 
but  she  changed  from  one  to  the  other  easily 
and  naturally,  with  no  mischief  to  any,  and 
good  to  all. 

Now,  with  the  stock  of  gold  and  silver 
nearly  equal,  and  with  the  yearly  product 
only  a  trifle  more  silver  than  gold,  why  can- 
not this  nation  of  65,000,000  do  what  France 
for  so  long  a  time  did  under  less  favorable 
conditions? 

INDEPENDENT  FREE  BIMETALLIC  COINAGE 
PREFERABLE. 

Let  me  quote  from  a  recent  speech  in  the 
United  States  Senate  by  a  gentleman  who 


Objection  Eight.  163 

represents  in  part,  a  State  supposed  to  be 
hostile  to  free  bimetallic  coinage — I  refer  to 
the  present  junior  Senator  from  New  York, 
and  to  this  extract  from  his  speech  of  Feb- 
ruary 6,  1893  : 

"My  own  personal  conviction  is  clear  that 
with  adequate  preparation,  revised  laws  and 
competent  administration  and  friendly  ad- 
ministration, independent  free  bimetallic 
coinage  would  be  within  the  power  of  the 
United  States  to  establish  and  maintain  ;  and 
for  my  own  part  I  should  prefer  that  solu- 
tion, with  no  entangling  foreign  alliances  or 
agreements  to  any  international  arrange- 
ment whatever.  We  do  not  half  realize  the 
overwhelming  power  of  the  United  States." 

Thus  said  Mr.  Hill  :  "The  risk— even  if 
there  were  a  risk — attending  independent 
free  bimetallic  coinage  is  a  trifle  compared 
with  the  danger  of  allowing  foreign  govern- 
ments to  dictate  to  us  what  financial  policy 
we  shall  pursue,  or  permitting  them  to  veto 
any  financial  legislation  we  see  fit  to  enact. 


"i 


1  From  an  address  by  Mr.  Henry  Jones  of  Georgia,  at 
first  Annual  Convention  of  American  Bimetallic  League, 
Washington,  D.  C,  February  23rd  1893,  page  34. 


ADDendix. 


THE  MATHEWS  RESOLUTION. 


Upon  the  assembling  of  the  43rd  Con- 
gress in  December  of  1877,  Mr.  Bland,  chair- 
man of  the  House  Committee  on  Coinage, 
began  the  preparation  of  a  bill  to  restore  to 
the  people  the  rights  of  free  mintage  to 
silver. 

Tbe  Senate  was  equally  prompt  in  its  ac- 
tion. On  December  6,  Senator  Matthews 
of  Ohio,  submitted  a  concurrent  resolution 
which  read  as  follows  : 

Whereas,  By  the  act  entitled,  "An  act  to 
strengthen  the  public  credit,"  approved  Mar. 
18,  1869,  it  was  provided  and  declared  that 
the  faith  of  the  United  States  was  thereby 
solemnly  pledged  to  the  payment  in  coin  or 
its  equivalent,  of  all  the  interest-bearing 
obligations  of  the  United  States,  except  in 
cases  where  the  law  authorizing  the  issue  of 
such  obligations  had  expressly  provided  that 
the  same  might  be  paid  in  lawful  money,  or 
other  currency  than  gold  and  silver  ;  and 

Whereas,  All  the  bonds  of  the  United 
States  authorized  to  be  issued  by  the  act 
entitled  "An  act  to  authorize  the  refunding 


1 68  Appendix 

of  the  national  debt,"  approved  July  14, 
1870,  by  the  terms  of  said  act  were  declared 
to  be  redeemable  in  coin  of  the  then  present 
standard  value,  bearing  interest  payable 
semi-annually  in  such  coin  ;  and 

Whereas,  All  bonds  of  the  United  States 
authorized  to  be  issued  under  the  act  en- 
titled "An  act  to  provide  for  the  resumption 
of  specie  payments,"  approved  January  14, 
1875,  are  required  to  be  of  the  description 
of  bonds  of  the  United  States  described  in 
the  said  act  of  Congress  approved  July  14, 
1870,  entitled  "An  act  to  authorize  the  re- 
funding of  the  national  debt  ;"  and 

Whereas,  At  the  passage  of  said  act  of 
Congress  last  aforesaid,  to-wit,  the  14th  day 
of  July,  1870,  the  coin  of  the  United  States 
of  standard  value  of  that  date  included  silver 
dollars  of  the  weight  of  4.12%  grains  each, 
as  declared  by  the  act  approved  January  18, 
1837,  entitled  "An  act  supplementary  to  the 
act  entitled  'An  act  establishing  a  mint  and 
regulating  the  coins  of  the  United  States," 
to  be  a  legal  tender  of  payment  according 
to  their  nominal  value  for  any  sum  whatever; 
therefore,  be  it 

Resolved,  By  the  Senate,  (the  House  of 
Representatives  concurring  therein)  that  all 


Appendix.  1 69 

the  bonds  of  the  United  States  issued  under 
the  said  acts  of  Congress  hereinbefore  re- 
cited, are  payable,  principal  and  interest,  at 
the  option  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  in  silver  dollars  of  the  coinage  of  the 
United  States  containing  412^2  grains  each 
of  standard  silver  ;  and  that  to  restore  to  its 
coinage  such  silver  coins  as  a  legal  tender  in 
payment  of  said  bonds,  principal  and  inter- 
est, is  not  in  violation  of  the  public  faith  nor 
in  derogation  of  the  rights  of  the  public 
creditor. 

On  January  25, 1878,  this  resolution  passed 
the  Senate  by  a  vote  of  43  to  22.  On  the 
28th,  three  days  afterwards,  it  passed  the 
House  without  debate,  by  189  to  79. 

Among  the  Democrats  who  voted  for 
this  resolution  was  Mr.  John  G.  Carlisle, 
now  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  Mr. 
Hillary  Herbert,  now  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

On  February  28th,  thirty-one  days  after 
the  passage  of  this  resolution,  Congress, 
passed  the  Bland-Allison  act  over  a  Presi- 
dential veto. 

This  fact  gives  to  the  resolution  immense 
significance,  as  being  intended  as  notice  to 
the  world  that  the  United  States  proposed 
to  restore  silver  to  coinage  with  full  legal 


1 70  Appendix . 

tender  to  the  coins,  and  to,  with  such  coins, 
pay  the  principal  and  interest  of  the  nation- 
al debt,  at  the  option  of  the  Government. 

This  Resolution  stands  upon  the  records 
of  the  nation  to-day  unrepealed  and  unim- 
peached. 

It  is  in  the  highest  sense  declaratory  of 
the  will  of  the  people,  and  the  act  of  Feb- 
ruary 28th,  1878,  confirmed  that  declaration. 

Mr.  Carlisle,  now  an  executive  official  of 
the  government,  nullifies  this  declaration 
and  the  law  which  follows  it  ;  both  resolu- 
tion and  act  sanctioned  by  his  vote  as  the 
solemnly  sworn  representative  of  the  people. 


ENGLAND'S  COMMERCIAL  PROS- 
PERITY NOT  DUE  TO  HER  GOLD 
STANDARD. 


OPINIONS    OF    DISRAELI. 
(lord  BEACONSFIELD.)! 


At  a  banquet  given  to  him  November  19, 
1873,  by  the  corporation  of  the  city  of  Glas- 
gow, on  the  occasion  of  his  installation  as 
Rector  of  the  University  of  Glasgow,  Mr. 
Disraeli  said  : 

"I  do  not  observe  myself  that  there  are 
any  symptoms  in  Britain  of  reckless  specu- 
lation. 

"No  doubt  our  young  relation  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  with  the  ardor 
which  is  characteristic  of  youth,  have  been 
doing  some  things  somewhat  extravagant.2 
But  I  do  not  believe  that  the  disorders  which 
have  arisen  there  could  have  occasioned,  or 
were   adequate    to   occasion,    the    disorders 


1  The  Silver  Question,  by  Geo.  M.  Weston,  Secretary  to 
U.  S.  Silver  Commission,  page  258. 

2  The  "'young  relation"  had  demonetized  silver  in  Feb- 
ruary of  that  year,  1873. 


1 72  Appendix. 

that  have  occurred  in  our  own  country,  with 
reference  to  the  value  of  money.  I  attribute 
them  to  quite  another  cause.  I  think  the 
cause  is  not  exhausted,  and  is  deserving  the 
grave  attention  of  men  who  are  so  deeply 
interested  in  the  prosperity  of  the  country 
and  the  action  of  commerce  as  those  I  have 
the  pleasure  of  meeting  to-day. 

"I  attribute  the  great  monetary  disturb- 
ance that  has  occurred  to  the  great  changes 
which  the  governments  in  Europe  are  mak- 
ing with  reference  to  their  standard  of 
value. 

"I  know  myself  that  an  opinion  has  been 
extremely  prevalent  among  the  statesmen 
of  Europe,  and  among  distinguished  econo- 
mists and  merchants  abroad,  that  the  com- 
mercial prosperity  and  preponderance  of 
England  were  to  be  attributed  to  her  gold 
standard.  But  it  is  the  greatest  delusion  in 
the  world  to  attribute  the  commercial  pre- 
ponderance and  prosperity  to  our  having  a 
gold  standard.  Our  gold  standard  is  not 
the  cause  of  our  commercial  prosperity,  but 
the  consequence  of  our  commercial  prosper- 
ity ;  and  it  is  very  well  for  us  to  have  it  ; 
but  you  cannot  establish  a  gold  standard  by 
violent  means.     It  must  arise  gradually  from 


Appendix .  1  73 

the  large  transactions  of  a  country,  and  the 
consequent  command  it  may  have  over  the 
precious  metals.  When  the  various  States 
of  Europe  suddenly  determined  to  have  a 
gold  standard  and  took  steps  to  carry  it  into 
effect,  it  was  quite  evident  that  we  must 
prepare  ourselves  for  convulsions  in  the 
money  market  not  occasioned  by  speculation 
or  any  old  cause,  which  has  been  alleged, 
but  by  a  new  cause  with  which  we  are  not 
yet  sufficiently  acquainted,  and  the  conse- 
quences of  which  are  very  embarrassing." 


THE  NEW  SIAMESE  TWINS.1 


Some  of  these  people  actually  believe 
that  they  and  the  Government  are  one  and 
the  same,  each  of  equal  dignity  and  import- 
ance. This  extraordinary  language  occurs 
in  Henry  Clews'  weekly  circular  of  Febru- 
ary ii,  1893  : 

"The  United  States  Government  in  its 
finances  is  connected  with  the  banks  of  the 
entire  country  with  as  strong  a  tie  as  that 
which  united  the  Siamese  twins.  Their  in- 
terests are  identical,  their  success  and  future 
are  equally  dependent  upon  each  other  and 
the  confidence  in  and  high  credit  of  both  are, 
as  it  were,  matrimonially  joined  together, 
hence  the  Government  and  the  banks  must 
stand,  and  will  stand  by  each  other  insepar- 
ably; united  they  stand,  divided  they  fall." 

Is  this  true,  my  countrymen  ?  There  was 
no  survivor  of  the  Siamese  twins  ;  when  one 
died,  the  other  died  also;  their  mysterious 
union  ended  only  with  the  dissolution  of  their 

1  Mr.  Henry  Jones,  of  Georgia,  at  first  annual  conven- 
tion of  The  American  Bimetallic  League,  Washington,  D. 
C,  February  23,  1893,  page  30. 


Appendix.  175 

bodies  after  their  souls  had  departed.  Is  it 
to  be  thus  with  the  Government  and  the 
banks  ?  Must  the  people  support  both,  with 
the  banks  our  masters  and  overseers,  in  or- 
der that  we  may  have  the  Government  for 
our  service  ?  Is  there  to  be  no  life  for  the 
Government  beyond  the  banks,  and  are  we 
to  have  the  banks  as  long  as  we  have  the 
Government  ? 

If  the  Government  and  the  banks  are 
joined  in  matrimonial  bonds,  as  Mr.  Clews 
says,  then  what  God  hath  joined  together 
let  no  man  put  asunder.  Is  that  what  they 
mean?  Has  it  come  to  pass  that  this  Gov- 
ernment, after  its  wonderful  century  of  exist- 
ence, is  of  the  banks,  for  the  banks,  and  by 
the  banks,  lives  only  as  it  has  the  support  of 
the  banks,  and  will  fall  if  the  banks  desert 
it? 

Is  this  all  we  have  to  show,  as  the  result 
of  an  experiment  such  as  the  world  never 
saw  before,  a  government  living  and  moving 
only  when  propped  up  by  the  banks  and 
ready  to  die  from  neglect  when  they  die? 
There  is  even  no  room  for  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  The  Government  and  the  banks  are 
so  tangled  up,  each  with  the  other,  that  while 
there    may   be    a    reasonable   doubt    as    to 


1 76  Appendix. 

whether  they  are  to  live  or  die,  survive  or 
perish,  there  is  absolute  certainty  that  the 
same  good  or  ill  fortune  awaits  both  alike. 
At  least,  so  says  Mr.  Clews,  and  he  is  cer- 
tainly a  representative  banker. 

NO  LIGATURE  BETWEEN  GOVERNMENT  AND 

BANKS. 

While  undoubtedly  Mr.  Clews  believes 
all  he  says,  and  in  this  fairly  represents  the 
opinions  of  banks  and  bankers,  who  assume 
the  right  to  dictate  the  financial  laws  of  the 
country,  he  is  thoroughly  mistaken  both  as 
to  the  fact,  and  also  as  to  the  temper  of  the 
plain  people,  who,  after  all  determine  legis- 
lation. 

The  Government  and  the  banks  are  not 
the  Siamese  twins,  are  not  husband  and 
wife,  have  no  identical  interests,  or  future 
prospects  of  any  kind  dependent  each  upon 
the  other.  They  are  entirely  separate  and 
distinct,  and  if  the  banks  do  not  cease  their 
unwarrantable  interference  with  legislation 
there  will  be  a  war  between  them  and  the 
people  to  which  Jackson's  fight  against 
Nicholas  Biddle's  "Fiscal  Corporation"  will 
be  only  an  out-post  skirmish.  Other  people' 
have  rights  as  well  as  the  banks,  preferred 
rights,  immeasurably  superior  rights. 


REPORT   OF    MONETARY  CONFER- 
ENCE, 1878. 

(Page  210 


The  ten  European  powers  represented  at 
the  monetary  conference  held  at  Paris  in 
1878,  "Having  maturely  considered  the  pro- 
posals of  the  representatives  of  the  United 
States,  they  recognize  : 

" First.  That  it  is  necessary  to  maintain 
in  the  world  the  money  functions  of  silver  as 
well  as  those  of  gold,  but  that  the  selection 
for  use  of  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  met- 
als, or  of  both,  simultaneously,  should  be 
governed  by  the  special  position  of  each 
State  or  group  of  States. 

"Second.  That  the  question  of  the  restric- 
tion of  the  coinage  of  silver  should  equally 
be  left  to  the  discretion  of  each  State  or 
group  of  States,  according  to  the  particular 
circumstances  in  which  they  may  find  them- 
selves placed,  and  the  more  so,  in  that  the 
disturbance  produced  during  the  recent 
years  in  the  silver  market  has  variously  af- 
fected the  monetary  situation  of  the  several 
countries." 


178  Appendix. 

These  conclusions  declare,  in  language 
that  cannot  be  misunderstood,  that  each 
State  should  act  in  its  own  interest  "accord- 
ing to  the  particular  circumstances  in  which 
placed." 

The  sum  of  human  wisdom  upon  the 
monetary  question. 


EXTRACTS   FROM   WASHINGTON'S 
FAREWELL  ADDRESS,  1796. 


THE  BANEFUL  EFFECTS  OF  THE  SPIRIT  OF  PARTY. 


"In  contemplating'  the  causes  which  may 
disturb  our  union,  it  occurs  as  matter  of  seri- 
ous concern,  that  any  ground  should  have 
been  furnished  for  characterizing  parties  by 
geographical  discriminations.  One  of  the 
expedients  of  party  to  acquire  influence, 
within  particular  districts,  is  to  misrepresent 
the  opinions  and  aims  of  other  districts.  You 
cannot  shield  yourselves  too  much  against 
the  jealousies  and  heart-burnings  which 
spring  from  these  misrepresentations ;  they 
tend  to  render  alien  to  each  other  those 
who  ought  to  be  bound  together  by  fraternal 
affection.  *  *  *  They  serve  to  organize  fac- 
tion, to  give  it  an  artificial  and  extraordin- 
ary force — to  put  in  the  place  of  the  dele- 
gated will  of  the  nation,  the  will  of  the  party, 
often  a  small  but  artful  and  enterprising  mi- 
nority of  the  community;  and,  according  to 
the  alternate  triumphs  of  different  parties, 


1 80  Appendix. 

to  make  the  public  administration  the  mir- 
ror of  the  ill-concerted  and  incongruous  pro- 
jects of  faction,  rather  than  the  organ  of  con- 
sistent and  wholesome  plans  digested  by 
common  councils  and  modified  by  mutual 
interests. 

However  combinations  or  associations  of 
the  above  description  may  now  and  then 
answer  popular  ends,  they  are  likely,  in  the 
course  of  time  and  things,  to  become  potent 
engines,  by  which  cunning,  ambitious,  and 
unprincipled  men  will  be  enabled  to  subvert 
the  power  of  the  people,  and  to  usurp  for 
themselves  the  reins  of  government;  de- 
stroying afterward  the  very  engines  which 
have  lifted  them  to  unjust  dominion.  *  *  * 

Let  me  now  take  a  more  comprehensive 
view,  and  warn  you  in  the  most  solemn  man- 
ner against  the  baneful  effects  of  the  spirit 
of  party,  generally. 

This  spirit,  unfortunately,  is  inseparable 
from  our  nature,  having  its  root  in  the  strong- 
est passions  of  the  human  mind.  It  exists 
under  different  shapes  in  all  governments, 
more  or  less  stifled,  controlled,  or  repressed; 
but  in  those  of  the  popular  form  it  is  seen  in 
greatest  rankness,  and  it  is  truly  their  worst 
enemy. 


Appendix.  1 8 1 

The  alternate  domination  of  one  faction 
over  another,  sharpened  by  the  spirit  of  re- 
venge, natural  to  party  dissension,  which  in 
different  ages  and  countries  has  perpetrated 
the  most  horrid  enormities,  is  itself  a  fright- 
ful despotism.  But  this  leads  at  length  to  a 
more  formal  and  permanent  despotism.  The 
disorders  and  miseries  which  result,  grad- 
ually incline  the  minds  of  men  to  seek  se- 
curity and  repose  in  the  absolute  power  of 
an  individual,  and  sooner  or  later  the* chief 
of  some  prevailing  faction,  more  able  or 
more  fortunate  than  his  competitors,  turns 
this  disposition  to  the  purposes  of  his  own 
elevation  on  the  ruins  of  public  liberty. 

Without  looking  forward  to  an  extrem- 
ity of  this  kind  (which  nevertheless  ought 
not  to  be  entirely  out  of  sight),  the  common 
and  continual  mischiefs  of  the  spirit  of  party 
are  sufficient  to  make  it  the  interest  and 
duty  of  a  wise  people  to  discourage  and  re- 
strain it. 

It  serves  always  to  distract  the  public 
councils,  and  enfeeble  the  public  adminis- 
tration. It  agitates  the  community  with  ill- 
founded  jealousies  and  false  alarms;  kindles 
the  animosity  of  one  part  against  another, 
foments  occasionally  riot  and  insurrection. 


1 82  Appendix. 

It  opens  the  door  to  foreign  influence  and 
corruption,  which  find  a  facilitated  access  to 
the  government  itself  through  the  channels 
of  party  passions.  Thus  the  policy  and  the 
will  of  one  country  are  subjected  to  the  pol- 
icy and  will  of  another.  There  is  an  opin- 
ion that  parties  in  free  countries  are  useful 
checks  upon  the  administration  of  govern- 
ment, and  serve  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  of 
liberty.  This  within  certain  limits  is  prob- 
ably true  ;  and  in  governments  of  a  monar- 
chial  cast,  patriotism  may  look  with  indul- 
gence, if  not  with  favor,  upon  the  spirit  of 
party.  But  in  those  of  the  popular  charac- 
acter,  in  governments  purely  elective,  it  is  a 
spirit  not  to  be  encouraged.  From  their 
natural  tendency  it  is  certain  there  will  al- 
ways be  enough  of  that  spirit  for  every  sal- 
utary purpose.  And  there  being  constant 
danger  of  excess,  the  effort  ought  to  be,  by 
force  of  public  opinion,  to  mitigate  and  as- 
suage it.  A  fire  not  to  be  quenched,  it  de- 
mands uniform  vigilance  to  prevent  its  burst- 
ing into  a  fiame,  lest,  instead  of  warming, 
it  should  consume." 


"If  ever  the  free  institutions  of  America 
are  destroyed,  that  event  may  be  attributed 


Appendix.  1 83 

to  the  omnipotence  of  the  majority,  which 
may  at  some  future  time  urge  the  minorities 
to  desperation,  and  oblige  them  to  have  re- 
course to  physical  force.  Anarchy  will  be 
the  result,  but  it  will  have  been  brought 
about  by  despotism."1 — De  Tocqueville's 
"Democracy  In  America,"  chapter  15. 

1  The  despotism  and   corruption  due  to  a  disciplined 
party  majority, — G.  G.  M. 


NEW  YORK  BANK  PRESIDENTS' 
CONSPIRACY  AGAINST  INDUSTRY 
AND  PROSPERITY.— A  History  of 
the  Panic  of  1893,  by  J.  W.  Shuckers, 
during  the  war,  private  secretary  to 
Secretary  Chase. 


EXTRACTS     FROM     IV.     LETTER,     REPRINTED     BY 

PERMISSION. 


"On  the  nth  of  April  (1893),  Grover 
Cleveland  appointed  Conrad  N.  Jordan  to  be 
sub-Treasurer  at  New  York.  *  *  *  lordan's 
appointment  was  a  conspicuous  departure 
from  *  Cleveland's  publicly  announced  pur- 
pose, that  he  would  not  reappoint  ex-office- 
holders of  his  former  administration.  *  *  * 
But  if  Jordan's  appointment  to  be  sub-Treas- 
urer was  in  violation  of  one  of  *  Cleveland's 
principles  of  official  action,  it  was  strictly  in 
line  with  another — that  of  his  intended  use 
of  the  federal  patronage  to  force  the  repeal 
of  the  Silver  Law.1     Jordan  became  *  *  one 

1  The  Silver  purchase  act  of  1890. 


Appendix.  185 

of  the  most  active  and  efficient  of  the  fed- 
eral agents  of  that  repeal.  He  became  the 
confidential  intermediary  between  Grover 
Cleveland  and  the  New  York  National  Bank 
presidents  in  their  joint  operations  for  a 
National  Bank  war  upon  the  National  in- 
dustries, commerce  and  prosperity.  Jordan 
was  confirmed  on  April  15.  On  the  20th  and 
2 1  st  he  was  in  Washington  with  his  bonds, 
which  were  duly  approved.  Jordan  returned 
to  New  York  on  April  21,  arriving  there 
about  5.30  in  the  afternoon.  He  went  di- 
rectly to  the  Chase  National  Bank,  where 
his  coming  was  awaited  by  Henry  W.  Canon 
*  *  and  J.  Edward  Simmons.  *  *  A  short 
but  important  meeting  took  place  *  *  for  as 
a  consequence  of  it  Cannon  went  to  Wash- 
ington on  a  midnight  train.  *  *  He  stayed 
in  Washington  until  Sunday  afternoon,  April 
23,  interviewing  with  *  Cleveland.  *  *  'He 
was  disinclined  to  talk,'  *  *  although  he 
was  willing  to  say  that  'he  believed  his  visit 
wTould  bear  fruit.'  *  * 

"Jordan  was  sworn  into  office  Saturday 
morning,  April  22.  *  *  His  first  act  was  to 
arrange  a  meeting  with  certain  bank  presi- 
dents in  the  afternoon.  *  * 

"The  meeting  was  said  to  have  been  'in- 


1 86  Appendix. 

formal'  and  its  proceedings  were  secret.  *  * 
But  it  was  an  important  meeting;  one  in 
which,  for  some  reason,  *  Cleveland  was  so 
deeply  interested  that  Jordan  went  to  Wash- 
ington on  a  late  evening  train  specially  to  * 
report  *  proceedings.  He  went  to  the  White 
House  on  Sunday  morning,  had  a  long  con- 
ference with  *  Cleveland,  at  which  Cannon 
was  present. 

"Jordan  and  Cannon  returned  to  New 
York,  evening  of  Sunday,  April  23rd.  A 
meeting  had  been  arranged  by  wire  to  take 
place  'at  a  private  house  up  town.'  It  was 
preliminary  to  a  more  important  meeting  of 
the  bankers  on  the  next  day ;  all  of  these 
several  meetings  were  preliminary  to  the 
last,  and  most  important  of  them  all,  which 
occurred  on  Thursday,  x^pril  27th.  This  was 
'Columbus  Day' — a  bank  and  general  holi- 
day in  New  York ;  the  day  of  the  great  in- 
ternational review,  at  which  *  Cleveland  and 
his  cabinet  were  to  be  present. 

"About  half-past  four  o'clock,  April  27th, 
the  public  exercises  of  the  day  being  over, 
Mr.  Carlisle  was  driven  to  the  private  resi- 
dence of  Mr.  George  G.  Williams,  where 
nine  National  Bank  presidents  were  assem- 
bled as  follows : 


Appendix.  187 

"George  G.  Williams,  president  Chemi- 
cal National;  Edward  H.  Perkins,  president 
Importers  and  Traders;  Frederick  D.  Tap- 
pan,1  president  Gallatin  National;  James  T. 
Woodward,  president  Hanover  National  ; 
Brayton  Ives,  president  Western  National  ; 
Henry  W.  Cannon,  president  Chase  Nation- 
al ;  George  S.  Coe,  president  American  Ex- 
change Bank;  W.  W.  Sherman,  president 
National  Bank  of  Commerce  ;  J.  Edward 
Simmons,  president  Fourth  National  Bank. 
Conrad  N.  Jordan  and  Charles  J.  Canda 
were  also  present. 

"Carlisle  and  the  National  Bank  presi- 
dents met  each  other  with  an  effusive  cordi- 
ality. There  were  mutual  expressions  of 
admiration  and  respect.  *  *«The  bankers 
recognized  the  difficulties  of  Mr.  Carlisle's 
position,  and  Carlisle  in  his  turn  'thanked 
the  bankers  for  their  expressions  of  sympa- 
thy, and  declared  that  they  gave  him  more 
pleasure  than  anything  that  had  happened 
in  a  long  time.' 

"'Business'  being  now  in  order,  the  bank 
presidents  proposed  an  issue  of  bonds  "  'to 
protect  the  public   credit.'     But   the   bank 

1  This  man  has  been  described  as  "The  Bank  Dictator 
of  America." 


i  SS  Appendix. 

presidents  perfectly  well  knew,  when  they 
met  the  Secretary,  that  there  was  to  be  no 
issue  of  bonds. 

"Mr.  Carlisle,  in  his  reply  to  this  proposi- 
tion *  *  expressed  his  strong  repugnance  to 
an  issue  of  bonds.  *  *  The  subject  matter 
was  the  repeal  of  the  Silver  Law.  He 
assailed  it  with  great  bitterness.  He  de- 
nounced the  whole  body  of  the  financial  and 
currency  laws,  and  declared  the  necessity 
for  their  revision,  *  *  the  beginning  of  which 
must  be  'the  early,  unconditional  and  abso- 
lute repeal  of  the  Silver  Law.' 

There  was  nothing  new  in  these  views  of 
Mr.  Secretary  Carlisle.  The  'immediate  un- 
conditional' repeal  of  the  Silver  Law  had 
been  a  cry  of  the  New  York  National  Bank 
presidents  raised  coincident  with  the  pass- 
age of  the  law  ;  there  had  been  little  or  no 
intermission  in  its  repetition  since,  and  * 
Cleveland,  both  by  persuasion  and  threats, 
had  attempted  to  force  the  repeal  at  the 
second  session  of  the  52nd  Congress.  But 
the  Secretary  now  made  a  statement,  so 
alarming,  so  attrocious  and  incendiary,  that, 
if  the  National  Bank  presidents  had  been 
anything  but  what  they  were,  men  of  the 
most  reckless  purposes,  with  whom  the  pro- 


Appendix.  i  gg 

posal  to  commit  an  infamous  outrage  upon 
the  people  was  already  familiar,  they  would 
have  assailed  him  with  indignant  protest  and 
denunciation.     But  the  West  and  the  South 

*  *  were  against  the  repeal  of  the  Silver 
Law.  *  *  They  would  not  consent  to  the  re- 
peal except  in  exchange  for  Free  Coinage. 

*  Cleveland  never  would  consent  to  Free 
Coinage,  *  *  and  was  resolved  upon  the  re- 
peal of  the  Sherman  Law,  *  *  and  Cleve- 
land had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  if  the 
object  lesson  of  a  panic,  and  the  distress 
that  monetary  stringency  would  cause,  were 
necessary  to  secure  repeal,  the  Administra- 
tion would  do  nothing  to  prevent  it. 

"It  is  not  pretended  that  the  foregoing 
were  the  exact  words  used  by  Mr.  John  G. 
Carlisle  in  his  address  to  the  National  Bank 
presidents,  but  they  convey  the  substance  of 
what  he  said,  *  *  and  those  with  respect  to 
the  'object  lesson  of  a  panic'  are  so  nearly 
his  words  that  to  distinguish  them  would  *  be 
difficult. 

"By  an  'object  lesson'  was  meant  an  at- 
tack *  *  by  banking  operations  upon  the  en- 
tire industrial  and  commercial  communi- 
ties, and  most  particularly  those  of  the  South 
and  West  with  a  design  to  disorganize  cred- 


i  go  Appendix. 

it,  *  *  shut  down  mills  and  factories,  bank- 
rupt merchants,  to  produce  by  banking  op- 
erations so  widespread  and  intolerable  a 
state  of  social  and  business  disorder  *  *  as 
to  create  pressure  from  every  quarter  for 
the  repeal  of  the  Silver  Law,  to  which  all 
these  universal  ills  were  to  be  systematically 
ascribed. 

"This  was  the  attricious  scheme  of  out- 
rage and  spoliation  *  *  wrapped  up  in  the 
proposed  infamous  'object  lesson.'  *  *  *  * 

"Now  did  any  one  of  the  nine  National 
Bank  presidents,  or  did  Conrad  N.  Jordan 
or  Charles  J.  Canda  show  the  least  sign  of 
astonishment,  alarm,  distress,  or  even  sur- 
prise, when  Mr.  Carlisle  made  his  astound- 
ing statement  that  a  National  Bank  war 
upon  the  National  prosperity  was  approved 
by  Grover  Cleveland?     NO  ! 

"Did  any  one  of  them  *  *  *  make  any 
protest,  even  the  slightest,  that  a  *  *  Bank 
war  upon  the  industrial  and  commercial 
communitieswould  be  an  outrage  immeasur- 
ably wicked,  cruel,  indefensible,  infamous 
and  criminal?     NO. 

"Did  any  one  of  them  *  *  *  'show  or  ex- 
press any  disinclination  whatever  to  join  in 
this  proposed  cruel,  infamous  and  criminal 


Appendix.  I  g  [ 

National  Bank  war  upon  the  industrial  and 
commercial  communities?'     NO  ! 

"This  meeting  lasted  about  one  hour,  and 
was  the  last  of  that  series  of  extraordinary 
and  unprecedented  secret  Bank  Conferen- 
ces in  New  York,  and  Confidential  Bank- 
Cleveland  communications  between  Wall 
Street  and  the  White  House,  that  had  been 
in  progress  during  seven  consecutive  days. 
The  motive  for  their  continuance  no  longer 
existed,  the  preliminaries  had  all  been  ar- 
ranged, the  conclusions  had  been  reached, 
and  there  would  be  no  more  meetings.  An 
immense  calamity  now  impended  over  the 
American  people." 


These  letters  were  given  to  the  public  in 
1894.  No  action  for  slander,  defamation  of 
character,  or  libel  has  been  instituted  by 
any  one  or  more  of  the  persons  charged  as 
being  in  the  conspiracy.  Silence  as  of  the 
grave;  but  silence  consents,  silence  admits, 
that  the  charges  are  true. 


CORRECTIONS. 


Page    31  —  13th  line,  read  "they  gain." 

Page    45— Note  1,  read  "cut purses." 

Page    60— Last  line  of  table,  read  silver,  "63. *7-'" 

Page    95— Note,  read  three  horses. 

Page  125— 8th  line,  read  creditor. 


INDEX. 


A 

Ancient  Landmarks 64  79 

Andrews,  Prof.  E.  B.  Restoration  of  Silver 150 

Argentine  Republic,  Conditions  in 34 

Aristottle,  Paupers  in  State  (Note)   45 

Asiatic  Competition  54.  62,  112,  115,  117 

Atkinson,  Edward,  No  Silver  to  Come 154 

"                "          Sound  Money 157 

Austria  and  Prussia,  Adopt  Silver  Standard 160 

B 

Balance  of  Trade,  How  Maintained 83 

Baneful  Effect  of  Party  (Appendix) 179 

Bagehot,  W.,  Bounty  on  Indian  Exports 50-51 

Banks  of  New  York,  Repeal  Silver  Bill  (Note) 104 

Bank  Presidents,  Conspiracy  (Appendix) 184 

Beck,  Hon.  Jos.  B.,  Act  of  1873 7° 

Best  Money 157 

Bond  Issues,  The  Cleveland  94 

Bland- Allison  Act,  1878 102-103 

Bright,  Hon.  J.  M.,  Act  of  1873 66 

British  Royal  Commission  on  Prices 46-81 

Burchard,  Hon.  S.  B.,  Act  of  1S73 67 


1 94  Index. 

C 

Cameron,  Hon.  Don,  Basis  of  Gold 151 

Cairns,  Prof.,  Oriental  Trade 86 

Capitalist.  Benefited  by  Fall  in  Prices 46 

Carlisle,  John  G.,  Necessity  of  Silver 71 

Confession 107 

Latest  Remedy 12 1 

Nullifies  Matthews  Resolution 170 

Proposed  Remedy  Destructive 123 

Surrenders  Option  of  Payment 125 

Cernuschi  Standard  Bimetallic  (Note) 134 

Clews,  Henry,  Repeal  Silver  Law  (Note) 145 

Clifford,  Mr.  Justice,  Constitutional  Money 102 

Charges — Assaying,  Preparing  Standard  Metal 9 

Coinage  of  Gold,  9  ;  Repealed 10 

Charles  I.,  Beheaded,  Cause  of 105 

Colossal  Swindle,  Act  of  1873 67-68 

Comparisons,  between  Gold  and  Silver  Countries  ....  140 

Competition  of  Cheap  Labor  ...    112,  115,  117 

Congress  no  Power  to  Demonetize  Gold  or  Silver  ....  74 

Constitution  Imposes  Duty  to  Create  Money 119 

Constitution,  Supreme  Law 100 

Corn  Trade,  New  Wheat  Supply  and  Price 113,  115 

Cornwall  Tin  Mines  Closed  (Note) 114,  115 

Contraction  of  the  Currency,  Effect  of  (Note) 123 

Contracts  Void,  What  are 103 

Conspiracy  for  Panic,  1893   109.  184 

Cotton,  Table  of  Prices 59-60 

Credit  Devices,  in  common  use 24,  154 

Currency,  What  is 22 

D 

Debts,  Arbitrary  Function  of  Payment 16 

Demand  for  Money  Insatiable   25 

Depreciation  of  Silver,  a  Bounty  on  Exports  from  Sil- 
ver Using  Countries  5 1-53 


Index.  igcj 

De  Tocqueville,  on  Dangers  to  American   Republic. 

(Appendix) 183 

Dictionary  of  National  Biography 36 

Dollars,  Silver,  at  Premium  (Note) 21,  147 

Dollars,  Silver,  How  Paid  Out   153 

Dollar,  the  Unit  for  Money 12 

Disraeli  on  England's  Commercial   Supremacy    (Ap- 
pendix)    171 

E 

Effect  of  Falling  Prices  on  Money  18 

Effect  of  Restoring  Silver  to  Money  Function 25 

Egypt,  Conditions  in   142 

Encyclopaedia  Brittanica,  English  Creditors 40 

England's  Agriculture,  Condition  of 141 

England,  the  Great  Creditor 42 

English  Creditors  Injured  by  Increase  in  Price  of  Sil- 
ver    40 

English  Policy  Exploits  Industry   41 

Evils  of  Gold  Standard 27 

Europe's  only  Silver  is  Money  148-9 

Exchange  on  London  at  Discount 148 

Exchange,  Foreign,  Effect  of  Low 29,  31,  112 

Example  of  France 161 

Export  of  Gold 122  144 

Exports,  General,  Increased 122  147 

F 

Falling  Prices,  Effect  of  on  Interest 19 

"              Effect  of  on  Industry  (Note) 80 

"              Effect  of  on  Production 27 

Farrar,    Lord,   Effect   of   Silver   Coinage   by   United 

States '49 

Field,  Mr.  Justice,  Constitutional  Money 102 

Fraud  That  Will  Stink— Act  1873 66 

Free  Coinage  Defined 7 

Frewen,  Mr.  Moreton,  on  Prices 85 


1 96  Index. 

Fowler,  Sir  Robert  N.,  Wheat  and  Cotton  in  United 

States  and  India 47 

G 

Gold  Contracts  Nullification  99 

Contracts  Obnoxious i°3 

Exported,  When 145 

Not  a  Commodity 1 5 

Never  Varies  in  Value  15 

Possesses  No  Unchanging   Quality 16 

Reserve,  How  Established   87 

Reserve,  None  Authorized  (Note) 91 

Standard  Reduces  Prices 41 

Gladstone,  William  E.,  English  Creditors 42 

Grant,  President,  Special  Message 72 

Great  as  is  this  Republic  it  Can't  Create  Money 118 

Great  Consumers,  Who  Are 82 

Great  Britain  Guards  Her  Usury 40 

Great  Britain,  the  Gold  Standard  Realm   140 

Gresham  Law,  The    36 

Groesbeck,  Hon.  W.  S.,  Act  of  1873 75 

H 

Halstead,  Murat,  Advertisement 76 

Hill,  Hon.  David  B.,  International  Agreement 163 

Holman,  Hon.  W.  S.,  Act  1873  67 

Howe,  Hon.  T.  0 65 

Hume,  David,  Historian  (Note  80) 84 

I 

Imports,  Decreased 147 

Increase  of  Debt,  1894-5 122 

Indian  Competition 50,  5 1,  53,  55,  56,  57,  58,  59,  62-63 

Industry  Creates  Wealth 83 

Interest,  Fixed  Rates  of,  Benefited 46 

Interest,  Low  Rates  of,  denote  prostration 19 

International  Agreement 159 


Index.  H,; 

J 

Jevous,  W.  S.(  Money  and  Exchange  (Note) 37 

Jones,  Mr.  Henry,  Georgia 159 

Jones,  Senator  John  P.  (Note) 19,  41,  53,  92  (Note) 

L 

Legal  Tender  Notes,  Volume  of 124 

Legal  Tender,  of  Coins 102  103 

Legislation  Hostile  to  Silver 113 

Lincoln,  Abraham 64 

London,  England,  Market  for  surplus 49-50 

M 

Manning,  Daniel,  Secretary  Treasury 50 

Mathews  Resolution,  The  (Appendix) 167 

Monetary  Conference,  1878  (Appendix) 177 

Dislocation 50 

Panics,  Cause  of 155 

Money,  All  Sound 20  158 

Easy  in  Wall  Ssreet 17 

Effect  of  Increasing  Value 3I_84 

Supply  vs.  Demand 24 

Substitutes  for 84,  136,  156 

Locked  in  Reserves 17 

What  Is 20 

Mexico,  Conditions  in 140,  141,  142 

Morgan,  John  P.,  Alabama,  Act  1873 70 

Mortgages,  on  Land,  Houses,  Crops  and  Children ....  25 

Mulhall,  M.,  on  Cause  of  Low  Prices 48 

on  Quantities  of  Gold  and  Silver 155 

N 

National  Bank  Notes  a  Currency 22 

Nicholson,  Prof.  J.  S.,  on  Exports  from  India   52_53 

No  over-production  of  Silver 155 

Novel  Facility  in  Getting  Rupees 5 1 

Nullification,  by  Gold  Contracts 102  103 

Nullification,  of  Silver  Purchase  Act 60 


1 98  Index. 

O 

Objection  No.  One — Parity  129 

No.  Two — No  Bimetallic  Nation 134 

No.  Three — Monetary  Basis : .  137 

No.  Four — Gold  Would  Go  Out 144 

No.  Five — Exports  Lost 147 

No.  Six  —Silver  Would  Come 152 

No.  Seven — Best  Money 157 

No.  Eight — International  Agreement 159 

P 

Parity,  What  Is,  How  Maintained 129  133 

Paupers  in  a  State  (Note) 45 

Pierrepont,  Hon.  Edwards,  Act  1873 74 

Plum,  Senator,  Kansas,  Effect  of  Contraction  (Note).  123 

Premium  on  Gold,  Effect  of 34 

Price,  Fall  in,  Caused  by  Deficient  Money 80 

Price  of  Silver,  50  Years 131 

Productive  Industries  Benefited 31 

Production,  Law  of 31 

Prophecy  and  Fulfillment 6 

Public  Policy,  Contracts  Void 103 

R 

Relative  Quantities  Silver  and  Gold 131 

Rupee,  Standard  Coin  (Note  50) 55 

Rupee,  Effect  of  Cheap  Silver 5 1,  54,  55,  58,  113 

s 

Secretary  of  Treasury  Nullifies  Act  1890 60 

Sherman,  John,  Establishes  Gold  Reserve 88 

Siamese,  Twins,  The  New  (Appendix) 174 

Sibley,  Joseph  C,  on  Parity  (Note)  133 

Silver,  Dollars  at  Premium  (Note) 21 

"       Exports  of 1 22 

"       Foreign,  None  to  Come 154 

"       Rises,  Wheat  and  Cotton  Rise 53 

"       Question,  The,  Wheat  and  Cotton  Question. . .  49 


Index.  iqq 

Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton 47 

Sound  Money,  What  Is 20  158 

South  American  States 142 

Standard  Metal,  Silver,  Gold 9 

Standard  of  Value  Incorrect  (Note)  11 

Steck,  Amos,  Value  of  Money 137 

St.  John,  W.  P.,  on  Unit  of  Value  (Note) 13 

"             "        on  Foreign  Exchange 148 

Substitutes  for  Money 22  84 

Surplus,  Products  Sold  in  London 49  S° 

T 

Taxpayers  not  Consulted,  Act  1873 6S 

The  Crime  of  1873 r,l 

The  Dollar  of  Constitution 5 

The  Evils  of  the  Gold  Valuation  or  Standard  27 

The  Gold  Reserve 87 

The  Wage  Earners 80 

The  Yellow  Man  With  the  White  Metal 112 

Tribune,  Chicago,  Act  1873 69 

u 

Unit  Defined  (Note) r» 

"     of  Value  an  Ideal,  Impossible 12 

Unite  or  Die — Franklin 127 

Usury  Must  Be  Protected 45 

V 

Value,  What  Is,  in  Political  Economy 1 1 

Voorhees,  D.  W.,  Act  1873 68 

W 

Wage  Earners  and  Cheap  Rupees  116     117 

Warner,  Gen.  A.  J.,  Silver,  Wheat,  Cotton 55 

Washington's  Farewell  Address  (Appendix) 179 

Weed,  Hon.  Thurlow,  Act  1873 

What  is  Currency  


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200 


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Wheat  Crop,  1879-83  60 

1893  61 

Wheat  Decline  in  Supply  and  Price 116 

Wheat  and  Cotton  Growers,  Tax  on  by  Bond  Issues.  .94-95 
Why  Productive  Industries  Benefited  by  Free  Coinage  31 
Wollowski,  Count,  Compound  Pendulum 135 


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